Mention vs Citation: What’s the Difference?
A mention is when an AI answer names a brand in its text; a citation is when the answer lists the brand’s own domain among its sources. They are independent signals: an answer can name you without citing you, cite you without naming you, do both, or neither.
To see both signals for your own brand, prompt by prompt, see SeenMeter’s citation and source tracking.
The two signals fail for different reasons, so they need different fixes. Named but not cited: the model knows your brand but pulls its facts from a review site — that site gets the click when the reader verifies. Cited but not named: your content feeds the answer, but the reader never learns it was you.
That is why folding both into one number hides the diagnosis. SeenMeter tracks them as separate columns — a mention rate (for example, 70.4% of tracked answers name you) and a citation share for your domain — so you always know which of the two problems you actually have.
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