As search shifts from clicks to answers, citation optimization is the new SEO. Here is how to earn citations from AI engines like AI Overviews and Perplexity.
Key takeaways
- Search is shifting from 10 blue links to AI answers that cite a few sources, so ranking without being cited increasingly means zero visibility.
- Citation optimization is won on 2 surfaces: the model's training corpus (slow, authority-driven) and the real-time retrieval index (fast, RAG-driven). You need both.
- AI engines favor sources that are easy to parse, clearly authoritative, and answer-shaped, so structured entity markup and clean, quotable content matter more than keyword density.
- You can measure it: track how often your brand is cited in AI answers for your key questions, and your share of citations versus competitors.
- Vanaxity's recommendation: make your brand machine-parseable with structured markup, build answer-ready content around real questions, and monitor your AI citation rate as a core metric.
📖 Read the full guide on Van Data Team → Citation Optimization: Getting Cited by AI Engines
