AI Overviews · ChatGPT · Perplexity

The 7 AI Citation Signals

What Makes Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity Cite Your Brand

01
Entity Consistency

Consistent Person/Organization schema + sameAs graph. AI models need to resolve who you are.

Predictive Weight
92%
02
Source Authority Consolidation

One canonical source per topic beats expertise scattered across 20 thin pages.

Predictive Weight
87%
03
Definitional Precision

Term → definition → context → evidence. Clean definitions get extracted; loose prose doesn't.

Predictive Weight
81%
04
Structural Legibility

FAQ schema, short declarative sentences, tables. Machine-extractable format.

Predictive Weight
76%
05
Citation Ecosystem Depth

Independent third-party sources citing the same claim reinforces weight. Not backlinks — claim citations.

Predictive Weight
71%
06
Topical Freshness

RAG-based AI models weight recent content. Evergreen is dead; freshness matters.

Predictive Weight
64%
07
Attribution Architecture

Author, date, methodology. Clear attribution lets AI trace credibility.

Predictive Weight
58%

AI Overviews don't rank pages. They rank sources.

Fernando Angulo · Senior Market Research Manager at Semrush