> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.get-ryze.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Citation share

> Citation share is the percentage of all source links in AI-generated answers that point to a given domain, across a defined set of questions.

Citation share is the percentage of all source links in AI-generated answers that point to a given domain, across a defined set of questions.

Where [share of voice](/concepts/share-of-voice-ai) counts brand *mentions*, citation share counts *URLs used as sources*. It is the more actionable of the two, because citations come from live retrieval and retrieval responds to content.

## How it is calculated

For a fixed query set, collect every cited URL from every answer, then:

```
citation share = citations to your domain / total citations across all domains
```

Counting by domain rather than by answer avoids over-crediting a single answer that happens to cite four pages from one site.

## What the distribution usually looks like

Across broad commercial query sets, cited domains typically fall into recognisable bands:

* **Official platform properties** — the vendor's own site for platform-worded questions, often a large share
* **Documentation and help centres** — a consistently large share, because they are factual and directly answer specific questions
* **Primary specifications** — standards bodies, search engine developer docs
* **Editorial and comparison sites** — variable, often thinner than expected
* **A long tail** — many domains at fractions of a percent each

The documentation band is the one a vendor can realistically enter, which is why help-centre content is the usual first move for improving citation share.

## Interpreting the number

* **Volatility is normal.** Only a minority of cited URLs repeat between two runs of the same query. Judge by rate across many queries over time.
* **Zero is a real starting point.** A domain with no retrievable, factual pages will not appear at all, and no amount of query variation will surface it.
* **Query phrasing caps the ceiling.** In clusters where one platform's own domains take most citations, third-party citation share is structurally limited. Measure those clusters separately.
* **Citation share and conversions are not the same thing.** A cited page still has to be a page worth landing on.

## Related

* [Share of voice in AI](/concepts/share-of-voice-ai)
* [AI visibility](/concepts/ai-visibility)
* [Generative engine optimization](/concepts/generative-engine-optimization)