User Guide

Everything you need to measure, understand, and improve your brand’s AI visibility.

Getting Started

CiteMetrix helps you understand how AI platforms — including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Grok, DeepSeek, Copilot, Meta AI, and more — perceive, describe, and cite your brand. The Platform Registry architecture supports unlimited AI platforms, so coverage grows as the landscape evolves. Whether you’re an SEO professional, brand manager, or agency, CiteMetrix gives you the data you need to optimize for the AI search era.

Create your account

Sign up for beta access at citemetrix.com/beta. You’ll receive login credentials by email, usually within a few hours.

Set up your first Client & Profile

After logging in, navigate to My Clients to create a client (your company or your customer), then add a Brand Profile with the brand name, domain, industry, and target keywords you want to track.

Run your first scan

Open the AI Brand Monitor or AI Citation Tracker and enter your brand details. CiteMetrix will query all configured AI platforms and return your visibility data, citation sources, and initial ModelScore™.

Review your results

Explore your scores, read AI-generated descriptions of your brand, review citation sources, and identify gaps. Use the built-in remediation tools to start improving your visibility.

Dashboard Overview

Your CiteMetrix Dashboard is a sidebar-driven workspace. Click any item in the left sidebar to load it in the main panel.

The sidebar is organized into the following sections:

  • What’s New + Help & Support — Pinned at the top of the sidebar so you always see product updates and can access help instantly.
  • Dashboard — Executive overview with ModelScore, quick stats, recent citations, and scan controls.
  • Brand Setup — Configure what CiteMetrix monitors: Competitors (who you’re compared against), Brand Facts (verified truths for hallucination detection), and Queries (the questions AI should recommend you for).
  • Analysis — ModelScore (always first), then Accuracy, Analytics, AI Crawlers, Brand Perception, Experiments, Platforms, Reports, Sentiment, Share of Voice, and Source Pages — all alphabetized for easy access.
  • Remediation Tools — 9 built-in tools that connect findings to fixes: AI Content Audit, AI Trust Audit, Content Engine, Content Optimizer, Content Refresh Advisor, FAQ Generator, llms.txt Generator, Robots Analyzer, and Schema Advisor.
  • Settings — Domain-level configuration (scan frequency, notifications, Google OAuth).

Account-level settings (API Keys, Team, Security, Billing, API Usage) are accessible from your account menu in the top-right corner of the dashboard.

💡 Tip: Help is always at the top Help & Support is pinned at the top of the sidebar alongside What’s New, so you can always find documentation and contact support without scrolling.

ModelScore™

ModelScore™ is CiteMetrix’s proprietary composite metric that measures your brand’s overall AI visibility on a 0–100 scale. It’s the single number that answers: “How well do AI platforms know and recommend my brand?”

How ModelScore is calculated

ModelScore is built from four weighted components:

  • Brand Knowledge Score — How accurately AI platforms describe your brand, products, and services. Do they know what you do? Is the information current?
  • Positioning Alignment Score — How closely AI’s perception of your brand matches your intended positioning. Are you described as a premium provider when that’s your goal?
  • Sentiment Score — The overall tone AI uses when discussing your brand. Positive, neutral, or negative? Are there warning signals?
  • Citation Rate — How frequently AI platforms cite your website as a source when answering queries in your space. Are you in the conversation?
📊 Score ranges 80–100: Excellent AI Visibility — AI platforms know, recommend, and cite your brand consistently.
60–79: Good AI Visibility — Solid foundation with room to improve citation rates or positioning accuracy.
40–59: Moderate AI Visibility — AI knows your brand exists but descriptions may be incomplete or outdated.
0–39: Low AI Visibility — Significant gaps. AI platforms either don’t know your brand or have inaccurate information.

Tracking ModelScore over time

Each time you run a scan, CiteMetrix records your ModelScore along with all four component scores. Over time, you’ll see trend lines that show whether your optimization efforts are working. The dashboard displays week-over-week and month-over-month changes.

AI Brand Monitor

The AI Brand Monitor reveals how AI platforms perceive your brand. Enter your brand name, website URL, industry, desired positioning, and key competitors, and CiteMetrix queries AI models to generate a comprehensive perception report.

What you’ll get

  • AI Description — A verbatim summary of how AI would naturally describe your brand in 2–3 sentences
  • Brand Knowledge Score — How much accurate information AI has about your business
  • Positioning Alignment — How well AI’s description matches your intended brand positioning
  • Sentiment Analysis — Whether AI discusses your brand positively, neutrally, or negatively
  • Attribute Analysis — Which brand attributes are aligned, partially aligned, missing, or unexpected
  • Competitor Comparison — Side-by-side analysis of how AI perceives you versus your competitors
  • Actionable Recommendations — Specific steps to improve AI perception and close gaps
🎯 Best practice Include your desired brand positioning and 2–3 competitors when running the Brand Monitor. The competitive comparison often reveals the most actionable insights — you’ll see exactly where competitors have stronger AI perception and why.

AI Citation Tracker

The AI Citation Tracker tests whether AI platforms cite your website as a source when users ask questions related to your industry. Enter your domain, brand name, and a set of target queries (the kinds of questions your ideal customers would ask AI), and CiteMetrix runs each query across Perplexity to check for citations.

Key metrics

  • Citation Rate — The percentage of queries where your domain appeared as a cited source
  • Citations Found — Total number of times your domain was cited across all test queries
  • Brand Mentions — Times your brand name appeared in AI responses, even without a direct link
  • Total Sources — Number of competing sources cited across all queries, showing the competitive landscape
  • Per-query breakdown — For each query, see the full AI response, all cited sources, and whether your domain appeared

Choosing effective test queries

Think about the questions your target audience would type into ChatGPT or Perplexity. Focus on queries where being cited as a source would drive qualified traffic: “best [your category] tools,” “how to [solve problem you solve],” “[your industry] recommendations.” Test 5–10 queries per scan for a meaningful sample.

AI Content Auditor

The AI Content Auditor analyzes your existing content through the lens of AI discoverability. It evaluates whether your pages are structured, written, and optimized in ways that make AI platforms more likely to cite them.

The auditor examines factors like content depth, topical authority signals, structured data, freshness indicators, and citation-worthiness. Each page receives a Citation Likelihood Score from 0–100 with specific recommendations for improvement.

Brand Alignment Auditor

The Brand Alignment Auditor crawls your website and compares what your pages actually communicate against your intended brand positioning. It identifies misalignments between your messaging and what AI platforms would extract from your site.

How it works

Enter your domain, a brief description of your business, and optionally your industry. The auditor crawls your key pages (homepage, about, services, testimonials, pricing) and uses AI to analyze positioning signals, service reality, testimonial themes, and pricing structure. You’ll receive a scored alignment report with per-page meta title and description rewrites optimized for AI visibility.

Competitive Scorecard

The Competitive Scorecard is an executive dashboard that ranks your brand against competitors across every AI platform. It answers the question: “Who’s winning the AI visibility race in my industry?”

What you’ll see

  • Cross-platform ranking table — Your brand and competitors ranked by overall AI visibility, with per-platform breakdowns showing who leads on each AI system
  • Share of voice visualization — What percentage of AI citations in your category go to your brand versus competitors
  • Platform-level gaps — Specific platforms where competitors outperform you, creating targeted optimization opportunities
  • Trend indicators — Week-over-week and month-over-month changes showing who is gaining or losing ground
🎯 Best practice Add 3–5 competitors to the Scorecard for the most useful comparison. The insights are most actionable when you can identify specific platforms where a competitor is being cited and you are not — those are your highest-priority optimization targets.

AI Crawl Intelligence

Before an AI model can cite your website, its crawler has to visit and index your pages. AI Crawl Intelligence monitors which AI crawlers are accessing your site, how often, and what they’re indexing. Think of it as an early-warning system for AI visibility.

Tracked crawlers

  • GPTBot — OpenAI’s crawler (powers ChatGPT)
  • ClaudeBot — Anthropic’s crawler (powers Claude)
  • PerplexityBot — Perplexity’s search crawler
  • Google-Extended — Google’s AI training crawler (powers Gemini and AI Overviews)
  • Additional bots — Including DeepSeek, Meta, Microsoft, and any new AI crawlers as they emerge

What you’ll see

Status tiles for each crawler (allowed/blocked), crawl frequency charts, and pattern analysis showing which pages are crawled most often. If a crawler is blocked by your robots.txt, CiteMetrix flags it with a fix recommendation.

📊 Crawl data as a leading indicator Crawl frequency often predicts citation changes. If GPTBot starts visiting your pages more frequently, your ChatGPT citations are likely to improve in the coming weeks. Use crawl intelligence to measure the upstream impact of content changes before citation data catches up.

Hallucination Detection

AI platforms sometimes fabricate facts about brands — wrong pricing, incorrect product details, outdated leadership, or entirely made-up features. For pharmaceutical companies, financial services, and healthcare brands, this isn’t just annoying — it’s a compliance risk.

How it works

CiteMetrix compares AI responses about your brand against your verified brand facts (entered in your Brand Profile). Every factual claim is evaluated for accuracy and flagged with a severity level:

  • Critical — Factually wrong information that could cause harm or liability (e.g., incorrect drug interactions, wrong regulatory status)
  • High — Significantly incorrect claims about your products, pricing, or capabilities
  • Medium — Outdated information or partially incorrect details
  • Low — Minor inaccuracies or imprecise language

Each flagged hallucination shows the AI’s claim, the verified fact, the platform where it appeared, and a recommended corrective action. The audit log tracks hallucinations over time so you can demonstrate compliance monitoring to regulators and stakeholders.

⚠ Compliance use case For regulated industries, the hallucination detection log serves as documentation that your organization is actively monitoring AI representations of your brand. Export the log for inclusion in compliance reports.

Site Audit Dashboard

The Site Audit Dashboard performs a comprehensive, multi-tool SEO audit of any website. It crawls your site, then automatically runs a battery of analyses covering technical health, content quality, authority signals, and AI readiness.

What’s included

  • Crawl analysis — Discovers and indexes pages, checks status codes, identifies broken links and redirect chains
  • On-page SEO — Evaluates title tags, meta descriptions, H1/H2 structure, image alt text, and content length
  • Technical health — Robots.txt analysis, sitemap validation, HTTPS checks, Core Web Vitals assessment
  • Content scoring — Readability analysis, word count distribution, thin content detection, duplicate content identification
  • AI readiness — Citation likelihood scoring for each page, structured data coverage, E-E-A-T signal analysis
  • Presentation mode — Client-ready visual report with charts, category radar, and printable/shareable format
📄 Shareable reports Every site audit generates a unique share link that you can send to clients or stakeholders. The shared view includes all charts and findings in a clean, presentation-ready format. You can also print directly from the share view.

SEO Tools Suite

Beyond AI visibility, CiteMetrix includes a full suite of 47 professional ESC tools organized across 10 categories, integrated directly into your CiteMetrix dashboard.

Content Strategy

Content Brief Generator, Gap Analysis, Optimizer, Outline Creator, Refresh Advisor

Technical SEO

On-Page SEO, Schema Generator & Advisor, Core Web Vitals, Crawl Checker, Robots Analyzer

Link Building

Link Prospect Finder, Outreach Email Generator, HARO Response Generator, Domain Finder

Keyword Research

Keyword Suggest, PAA Expander, NLP Extractor, N-Grams Extractor, Entity Extractor

Competitive Intelligence

Competitor Content Audit, SERP Analyzer, Share of Voice Calculator

Local SEO

Local Business Audit, GBP Post Generator, Local Competitor Analyzer

Client & Profile Management

CiteMetrix organizes your work into a Client > Profile hierarchy. A Client represents a company or organization, and each Client can have multiple Brand Profiles (for example, different product lines, regional brands, or divisions).

Creating a client

Click My Clients in the sidebar, then + New Client. Enter the company name and optionally a contact name and notes. Active and archived clients can be filtered from the status dropdown.

Adding brand profiles

Within a client, click + New Profile. Each profile includes a profile name, domain URL, industry, target keywords, and optional crawl settings (max pages, crawl depth, URL exclusion patterns). If you’ve connected Google Search Console, you can link a GSC property to the profile.

Audit history

Every scan you run is automatically linked to the active profile. You can view, compare, and share past audits from the profile detail view. The comparison tool lets you put two audits side by side to track improvement over time.

Google Integrations

CiteMetrix integrates with Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to enrich your visibility data with real search performance metrics.

Connecting Google Search Console

From the dashboard, you’ll see a Connect Google option. Click it to authorize CiteMetrix via Google OAuth. We request only the webmasters.readonly scope — we can read your search performance data (queries, impressions, clicks, position) but cannot modify anything in your account.

Once connected, GSC data appears in your site audits and is available for keyword tracking. You can revoke access at any time from your Google Account Permissions page.

🔒 Privacy note CiteMetrix adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including Limited Use requirements. We never sell Google data, use it for advertising, or train AI models with it. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Bring Your Own Keys (BYOK)

CiteMetrix uses a Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) architecture across all AI platforms. When you provide your own API keys, your scans go directly through those APIs with no per-prompt fees or usage ceilings from CiteMetrix. This gives you unlimited scanning at your own API cost.

BYOK is available for all AI platform integrations: Perplexity, OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), Google Gemini, xAI (Grok), DeepSeek, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI, and any custom platforms you add via the Platform Registry. Enter your keys in API Keys from your account menu (top right of the dashboard). Keys are encrypted at rest and never shared.

💰 Cost advantage Because CiteMetrix never touches your API costs, our subscription margins stay at 85–90% regardless of how many scans you run. Most users spend $2–5 per month total across all platforms. Gemini, Grok, and Meta AI offer free tiers that cover typical CiteMetrix usage.

Platform Registry

The Platform Registry is CiteMetrix’s architecture for supporting unlimited AI platforms. Instead of being hard-coded to a fixed set of platforms, the Registry allows both built-in and custom platform definitions.

Built-in platforms

CiteMetrix ships with 10 built-in platform definitions that are pre-configured and ready to use once you add an API key: ChatGPT (OpenAI), Perplexity, Claude (Anthropic), Google Gemini, Google AI Overviews (via DataForSEO), Grok (xAI), DeepSeek, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI (Llama), and You.com. New platforms are added as they become available.

Custom platforms

Any AI platform that offers an OpenAI-compatible API can be added as a custom platform. From the Platform Registry in your dashboard settings, enter the platform name, API endpoint URL, and your API key. CiteMetrix will include it in all scans alongside the built-in platforms. This is available on all subscription tiers.

🚀 Why this matters New AI platforms are launching constantly. The Platform Registry means CiteMetrix will never be limited to a fixed set of platforms. As new AI systems gain market share, you can add them immediately without waiting for a CiteMetrix update.

Plans & Pricing

CiteMetrix offers four subscription tiers designed for different team sizes and use cases:

  • Solo ($79/mo) — For individual consultants and small business owners. 1 domain, 25 tracked queries, unlimited scans via BYOK, all 10 built-in AI platforms, executive + technical dashboards, and basic reports.
  • Professional ($199/mo) — For marketing teams. 5 domains, 50 queries per domain, unlimited scans via BYOK, 3 competitors per domain, 3 team seats, sentiment analysis, and professional reports.
  • Agency ($499/mo) — For agencies managing client portfolios. 15 domains, 100 queries per domain, unlimited scans via BYOK, 10 competitors per domain, 10 team seats, white-label reports, all 4 report types, and REST API access.
  • Enterprise (custom) — For large organizations with regulatory requirements. Unlimited domains, unlimited queries, dedicated support, SLA guarantees, SOC 2 compliance, SSO/SAML, and custom onboarding.

All plans use BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) — you supply your own AI API keys for scanning, which means unlimited scans with no per-query charges from CiteMetrix. You pay the AI providers directly, keeping your data private and your costs transparent.

Annual billing is available at a discount equivalent to 2 months free. Add-on packs for additional domains, seats, and scans can be purchased from Billing & Subscriptions in your account menu.

🎉 Beta users During the beta period, all features and tools are available at no cost. Take advantage of unlimited access to establish your baselines and start tracking AI visibility trends now.

Reports

CiteMetrix includes four professional report types designed for different use cases. Generate reports from the Reports page in the Analysis section of the sidebar.

AI Visibility Report

A point-in-time snapshot of your AI visibility. Includes your current ModelScore and component breakdown, citation rates across platforms, top-performing queries, and actionable recommendations for improvement. This is the report to use for quick stakeholder updates or pulse checks.

Monthly Progress Report

A period-over-period comparison that shows how your AI visibility has changed. Includes ModelScore trends, query movement (gained, lost, or stable), platform-by-platform performance changes, and key takeaways. Use this for client retainer reports and ROI justification.

Competitive Intelligence Report

Side-by-side competitor comparison. Includes share of voice breakdown, platform-level gaps (where competitors are cited and you are not), head-to-head citation comparisons, and competitive content opportunities. Best for competitive positioning analysis and content strategy planning.

Content Opportunity Report

Identifies the best opportunities to improve your AI citations. Includes uncited queries ranked by priority, platform citation gaps (where you could be cited but are not), competitive content gaps, and specific action items. Use this for content planning and editorial calendar development.

White-label reports Agency and Enterprise subscribers can generate white-label reports suitable for client delivery, without CiteMetrix branding.

Alerts & Digests

Stay informed about changes to your AI visibility without logging into the dashboard every day.

Score Change Alerts

Enable score change alerts to receive an email notification whenever your ModelScore shifts significantly. You can set the sensitivity threshold to 3+, 5+, or 10+ points, depending on how closely you want to monitor changes. Alerts are sent to your configured alert email address (or your account email by default).

Weekly Digest

The weekly digest is a summary email that includes your current ModelScore, total citations, notable changes since the last digest, and any new competitor activity. Choose your preferred delivery day (Monday through Sunday). Click Send Test Digest to preview the format before enabling it.

Alert Email Address

By default, all alerts and digest emails go to your account email. You can set a different address in Domain Settings. This is useful for routing notifications to a shared team inbox or directly to a client contact.

Team Management

Professional and Agency plans include multiple seats, allowing you to collaborate with colleagues or give clients read-only access to their data. Manage your team from Team in your account menu (top right).

Roles

CiteMetrix uses four permission levels:

  • Owner — Full access to all features including billing, team management, and security settings. Each account has exactly one owner.
  • Admin — Full access to data and team management, but cannot modify billing or subscription settings.
  • Analyst — Can view all data and run scans, but cannot add or remove domains, keywords, or team members.
  • Viewer — Read-only access to dashboards and reports. Cannot run scans or make any changes.

Inviting team members

Click Invite Member on the Team page, enter the person’s email address, and select their role. They will receive an invitation email with a link to accept. If they do not already have a CiteMetrix account, they will be prompted to create one. Pending invitations expire after 7 days but can be resent.

Per-domain access controls

By default, team members can see all domains on your account. For agencies managing multiple client domains, you can restrict individual team members to specific domains. Click the domain access icon next to a team member’s name on the Team page to configure their access. When a whitelist is set, the member will only see data for their assigned domains.

Removing members

Owners and Admins can remove team members at any time. Removal is immediate — the member loses access to all CiteMetrix data. Their WordPress account remains active but they will no longer see the CiteMetrix dashboard. All data stays with the account owner; nothing is deleted when a member is removed.

Ownership transfer

Account ownership can be transferred to a team Admin through a verified process. Navigate to Security (in your user dropdown menu), scroll to Transfer Ownership, and follow the instructions. Both parties must confirm via email before the transfer completes. After transfer, the previous owner is automatically added as an Admin.

Security & Two-Factor Authentication

CiteMetrix takes security seriously. Access your security settings from the 🔒 Security link in the user dropdown menu (top right of the dashboard).

Two-factor authentication (2FA)

Add an extra layer of protection to your account with time-based one-time passwords (TOTP). CiteMetrix 2FA works with any TOTP-compatible authenticator app, including Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, and Microsoft Authenticator.

To set up 2FA:

  1. Go to the Security page from your user dropdown
  2. Click Start Setup
  3. Scan the QR code with your authenticator app (or enter the manual key)
  4. Enter the 6-digit code from your app to confirm
  5. Save your 10 backup codes in a secure location

Backup codes

When you enable 2FA, CiteMetrix generates 10 single-use backup codes. If you ever lose access to your authenticator app, you can use one of these codes to log in. Each code works only once. If you run low on backup codes, use the Regenerate button on the Security page to create a fresh set (this invalidates all previous codes).

Team 2FA enforcement

Account owners can require 2FA for all team members by enabling the Require 2FA for team setting on the Security page. When enabled, team members without 2FA will be prompted to set it up at their next login, and they will not be able to disable it while the requirement is active.

🔒 Security best practices Enable 2FA on your account and enforce it for your team. Use strong, unique passwords. Regularly review your team members and remove anyone who no longer needs access. Keep your BYOK API keys confidential and rotate them periodically.

Frequently Asked Questions

What AI platforms does CiteMetrix monitor?

CiteMetrix ships with 10 built-in AI platforms: ChatGPT (OpenAI), Perplexity, Claude (Anthropic), Google Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Grok (xAI), DeepSeek, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI (Llama), and You.com. Beyond these, the Platform Registry lets you add unlimited custom platforms that use OpenAI-compatible APIs. Each platform has different training data and citation behaviors, so monitoring across platforms gives you a complete picture of your AI visibility.

How often should I run scans?

We recommend running a Brand Monitor scan at least once a month and a Citation Tracker scan every two weeks. AI models update their knowledge and behavior regularly, so consistent tracking lets you spot changes and measure the impact of your optimization work.

Can I use CiteMetrix for my clients?

Yes. The Client & Profile management system is designed for agencies and consultants managing multiple brands. Each client can have multiple brand profiles, and every scan is tracked in the audit history for easy reporting.

What’s the difference between a “mention” and a “citation”?

A mention is when an AI platform references your brand name in its response text. A citation is when the AI explicitly links to your website as a source. Citations are more valuable because they can drive direct referral traffic and signal to the AI model that your content is authoritative.

Does CiteMetrix affect my website or SEO?

No. CiteMetrix is a monitoring and analysis platform. It queries AI platforms on your behalf and analyzes your existing content — it never modifies your website, submits anything to search engines, or make changes to your pages.

What does the LLM Text Generator do?

The LLM Text Generator creates an llms.txt file for your website. This is an emerging standard (similar to robots.txt) that tells AI crawlers how to interpret your site, what to cite, and how to attribute your content. You configure your preferences, generate the file, and upload it to your site root.

How do team seats work?

Each subscription tier includes a specific number of team seats (Professional: 3, Agency: 10). The account owner does not count against the seat limit. You can invite team members with different roles (Admin, Analyst, Viewer) and control which domains each person can access. If you need more seats, you can purchase add-on seat packs from Billing & Subscriptions in your account menu.

What authenticator apps work with CiteMetrix 2FA?

Any TOTP-compatible authenticator app works with CiteMetrix. Popular options include Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, and Microsoft Authenticator. CiteMetrix uses the standard RFC 6238 algorithm with 30-second time steps and 6-digit codes.

Is CiteMetrix SOC 2 compliant?

CiteMetrix is actively pursuing SOC 2 compliance. We have implemented the core technical controls (encryption at rest and in transit, role-based access, audit logging, two-factor authentication, rate limiting, and data isolation) and have completed all 9 required policy documents. The formal audit process is planned for post-funding. Enterprise prospects requiring a security review can contact us directly.

Support & Contact

Need help? We’re here.

For bug reports or feature requests, email support with a description and screenshots if possible. Beta users’ feedback directly shapes the product roadmap.

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