Why it matters
ChatGPT names a hydraulics distributor in roughly 20% of category answers, but links its page in only about 4% of them. The first number is mention rate. The second is citation rate. The gap shows a brand the model recognizes by name yet does not trust enough to attribute as a source. Tracking only mentions hides that gap, and you end up reporting awareness you cannot convert into clicks or verifiable authority.
Mention rate vs citation rate
Both count appearances across the same prompt set, but they count different things.
- Mention rate: the share of answers that name your brand, with or without a link. Measures recognition.
- Citation rate: the share of answers that link or attribute a source to your domain. Measures source authority.
A high mention rate with a low citation rate is the common pattern. The model knows you exist but pulls its facts from a third-party catalog or a competitor's spec page.
In practice
Run your 30 buyer prompts, things like "cross-reference for a Parker PV016 pump" or "best supplier for SAE J517 hose," then log two columns per brand: was it named, and was it cited. If your mention rate climbs while citation rate stays flat, the fix is source-side. Publish the cross-reference table and spec data on your own pages so the engine has a source to attribute the answer to, not a name to recall.