What Is an AI Citation, and Why It Is Not a Backlink
An AI citation passes no authority, expires with the next run, and can appear without a click. Every habit borrowed from link building breaks on it.
AEO Fundamentals page 2
The definitions, the mechanics, and the vocabulary. Start here if AEO is new to you, or if you have been doing it for a year and want to check that the terms you are using mean what you think.
This section covers what an AI citation actually is and why it behaves nothing like a backlink, how each of the ten major engines retrieves differently, and the difference between being mentioned, being cited, and being recommended. Those three get used interchangeably by most tools and they have three different fixes.
Everything here is written to be checked. Where a claim comes from a study, the study is linked.
16 posts
AEO vs SEO: What Actually Changes When Buyers Ask AI Instead of Google
SEO competes for a position among ten results. AEO competes for inclusion in one answer. The technical work carries over; the scoreboard does not.
The AEO Glossary: 60 Terms That Define AI Search Visibility
Sixty AI search visibility terms defined with primary sources, led by the four that matter: citation rate, mention rate, share of voice, entity resolution.
What Is Answer Engine Optimization? The Complete Guide to AI Search Visibility
Answer engine optimization is making a brand retrievable, accurate and recommendable inside AI answers, measured by citation rate rather than by rank.