Services · Citation Outreach

Get cited by the sources AI trusts

Citation Outreach is outreach designed for AI, not just for links. We find the pages AI already cites for the questions your buyers ask, then put a verified, well-sourced answer about your brand inside them.

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The problem

AI repeats what independent sources agree on

AI doesn’t trust a single source, least of all your own website. It looks for consensus. Below about two or three independent sources per claim, AI hedges. Above it, AI asserts.

In most categories a small set of pages carries most of the weight, and only some of them stick: cited week after week while others appear once and vanish. If your brand isn’t in the pages that stick, your competitors are the ones AI recommends.

Layers this works on

Not every citation counts

Most citations are junk

AI cites a lot of pages once and never again. Those don’t help you. The pages worth being on are the few with a strong citation history, cited week after week, and that’s where we focus.

Illustrative example of a typical category: pages AI cited over 12 weeks, grouped by how many weeks each was cited. Most citations are one-offs. We target the pages with a strong citation history.

Cited pages by number of weeks cited (illustrative)
Weeks cited	Pages
1	412
2	168
3	97
4	61
5	44
6	32
7	25
8	19
9	16
10	14
11	18
12	23

Two approaches

Two ways we earn citations

Approach 1

Upgrade the pages AI already trusts

We go after pages with a strong citation history: cited across platforms, week after week.

Add a direct answer with one verified statement, usually from your website, plus a branded link to the page that supports it
Back the same fact with two credible sources that validate the claim, so AI can confirm it

Approach 2

Create new citations

Publishers don’t always want to update an existing page, but they will publish a new one.

Create evidence-based content built to answer the exact question
Publish it on sites with high harmonic centrality for the prompt cluster, where AI already looks

How it works

What we do

01
Gather the citation data
Every campaign starts from what AI actually cites for your target questions.
- Use your AI visibility tool’s export (most track the last 90 days), or
- After a strategy call, we run 250 prompts in your category for one week across all major AI platforms
- Filter by market and by prompts that match the exact target question, prioritizing ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews
02
Separate signal from junk
Being cited once doesn’t make a page useful. We look for a strong citation history.
- Stickiness test: does a citation persist, or appear only once?
- Harmonic centrality analysis to find the sites at the center of each prompt cluster
03
Earn the citations
Upgrade the pages AI already trusts, or create new ones where publishers prefer that.
04
Measure in AI answers
We track citations and mentions across AI platforms, not just links, so you see placements turn into recommendations.

What you get

Deliverables

Citation opportunity mapThe pages AI cites for your target questions, with junk citations filtered out and the rest ranked by citation history and harmonic centrality.
Upgraded placementsDirect, verified answers about your brand on authority pages AI already cites.
New citationsNew, evidence-based content on central sites in your prompt cluster.
Citation reportWhich sources AI cites, on which platforms, and how your share changes.

Proof

Results from this kind of work

melin+315%LLM-attributed sales, led by Reddit, listicles and PR placementsRead the case study →

Who you’ll work with

The team behind it

Julie Cole

Senior Manager, SearchTides Links

Jason Law

Media Relations Specialist

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Is this the same as link building?

No. Link building optimizes for search rankings. Citation Outreach targets the specific pages AI models cite and measures success by mentions and recommendations in AI answers.

What is harmonic centrality?

A measure of how close a site sits to everything else in the web’s link graph. Sites with high harmonic centrality for a topic are crawled more, trusted more and cited more by AI, so a placement there carries further.

What is a “junk citation”?

A page AI cited once and never again. Most citations in any category look like this. They don’t help you, so we filter them out and target pages with a strong citation history instead.

Do I need AI visibility software?

No. If you have it, we start from your exported citation data. If not, we run 250 prompts in your category for a week across all major AI platforms after a strategy call.

Is this part of the AI Undercurrent?

Citation Outreach is the corroboration work from the full AI Undercurrent, offered on its own. It’s the fastest way to start if competitors are being cited and you aren’t.

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