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Field notes on getting cited by AI.
Operator-grade writing on GEO: how models decide what to quote, what we measure, and what actually moves Share of Answer. No vibes.
33 field notes · Updated
Source · Readable is necessary, cited is decided elsewhere
Fig. 01 — AI citation decision points
Featured · Editorial
On-Site Makes You Readable. Off-Site Makes You Cited.
Most AI-search strategies are SEO with a new label. The work that actually earns an AI citation happens off your site — on the sources the model already trusts. Here is the honest division of labor, and the five questions to ask before you hire a GEO agency.
By Elizabeth S. 6 min read
Read moreGoogle Says Stop Publishing Commodity Content. That Was the GEO Thesis All Along.
Google's Danny Sullivan told SEOs to stop publishing commodity content and write unique, specific, first-hand content instead. That is the same selection problem AI engines solve when they choose who to cite. Here is how Google's three tests map to GEO.
5 min read
EditorialAI content poisoning: the threat model for your brand in AI search
Attackers can corrupt what ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini say about your brand through data poisoning and RAG poisoning. Here's the threat model and the defensive playbook.
8 min read
EditorialDefending the Crawl: The Infrastructure Layer That Decides Whether AI Engines Can Reach You
How to let the right AI crawlers in and control load. A reference on GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, robots.txt for AI, server latency, and SSR for AI bots.
7 min read
EditorialDurable GEO: Building AI Visibility That Survives Model Updates
Generative engine optimization that survives frequent model updates and ranking churn. Why entity grounding and owned infrastructure compound while prompt-of-the-month tactics decay.
8 min read
EditorialGoogle now reports your AI Overviews and AI Mode visibility in Search Console
On 3 June 2026 Google added a Generative AI performance report to Search Console — first-party impression data for AI Overviews and AI Mode. Here is exactly what it shows, what it deliberately leaves out, and how to read it without drawing the wrong conclusion.
6 min read
ReferenceSecuring agent-facing infrastructure: how to harden the schema, llms.txt, and agents.json that AI reads about you
The structured data, llms.txt, and agents.json you publish for AI are an attack surface. A defensive checklist for prompt injection, schema integrity, and locked-down deploys.
7 min read
EditorialWhat is a Context Hub? The GEO content structure built for AI citation
A Context Hub is a GEO-native content structure — an entity-anchored cluster of pages that an AI engine can cite confidently for any sub-query in a topic. Here is how it differs from topical clusters and how to build one.
7 min read
EditorialThe 2026 AI visibility tracking stack: tools, cadence, and what to ignore
Every week a new tool claims to track your brand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Most are wrong or incomplete. Here is the stack Citable Agency runs in production — what each tool actually measures, what to pair it with, and the manual verification layer you cannot skip.
7 min read
EditorialAI agents are coming for your brand: how to prepare for the agentic web
AI agents browse the web, evaluate options, and act on behalf of users — book travel, compare vendors, complete purchases. The brands they choose are the brands with clean schema, fast pages, and clear entity signals. Here is what to fix before agentic traffic becomes the majority.
6 min read
ReferenceEntity disambiguation for AI search: how to stop ChatGPT from confusing your brand with someone else
When two companies share a name — or even just a fragment of one — AI assistants will pick a default and stick with it. Here is the operator-grade method for forcing AI to disambiguate, with the exact schema, sameAs, and Wikidata edits that move the needle.
8 min read
EditorialMultilingual GEO: how brands win in Spanish AND English AI search at the same time
Most agencies translate. That is the wrong unit of work. Multilingual GEO is about building two parallel entity graphs — one per language — so AI assistants cite you natively in each market. Here is the implementation sequence.
6 min read
ReferenceWe built an agents.json manifest for our agency site — what it does, why it matters, and the full spec we shipped
agents.json is a machine-readable site manifest designed for AI agents — a typed companion to llms.txt that exposes every page, capability, and endpoint. We shipped one for citable.agency. Here is what is in it, why we built it, and the exact format other teams can copy.
5 min read
EditorialAI search and Spanish fintech affiliate: what to watch for as the curve catches up
AI Overviews and direct LLM answers rolled out to English first; Spanish-language fintech is following on a delay. Here is the publicly evidenced direction of travel, the patterns worth instrumenting for now, and the honest limits of what the data lets anyone claim today.
7 min read
EditorialGEO for fintech lead gen: when the buyer's question gets answered before the click
Fintech affiliates and operators still optimize for Google clicks. But many buyer questions are now answered inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews before any link is clicked. This is what that shift does to lead quality, acquisition strategy, and the metrics worth reporting in 2026.
7 min read
EditorialHow to build a weekly citation-rate audit across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews
A concrete architecture for running a weekly automated citation-rate audit across the four AI surfaces that matter. Tools, prompt schema, database structure, and the build checklist — designed to be copied. Not a SaaS pitch, an engineering pattern.
6 min read
Editorial58.5% of Google searches end without a click. Now what?
SparkToro's 2024 clickstream study confirms 58.5% of Google searches send zero traffic to the open web. The implication is not that SEO is dead — it is that CTR is no longer the right KPI. This is what replaces it.
4 min read
ReferenceAI visibility: the ten signals that decide whether AI systems surface your brand
Ten auditable signals — across technical trust, knowledge-graph presence, and content trust — determine whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews surface your brand. This is the framework behind the Citable AI Visibility Checker.
17 min read
EditorialThe 40–60 word rule: how to write an H2 an LLM will quote verbatim
AI engines extract the first 40–60 words under each heading and treat them as the answer. The BLUF/AED pattern — Bottom Line Up Front, then Answer, Evidence, Depth — is the editorial discipline that makes those 40–60 words quotable. Here is the protocol.
5 min read
EditorialThe data-density threshold: 19 statistics is the line that doubles AI citations
Blog articles with 19 or more verifiable data points average 5.4 AI citations. Articles below that line average 2.8. The threshold is operational. Here is how to engineer it into every post.
4 min read
EditorialDoes llms.txt actually matter for GEO in 2026?
Google said llms.txt is not a ranking signal. No major LLM vendor consumes it. Here is Citable's honest 2026 position: llms.txt is a hedge, not a tactic — and that is fine.
5 min read
EditorialQuery fan-out: why one blog post cannot win AI search
AI engines decompose every complex prompt into 8–12 sub-queries and search them in parallel. Hub-and-spoke topic clusters are the only structure that survives fan-out. Here is how to build one.
5 min read
EditorialShare of Answer vs Share of Model: same metric, different names
Share of Answer (SoA) and Share of Model (SoM) are the same GEO metric measured the same way. Here is the formula, why two names exist, and which one to use.
5 min read
Editorialllms.txt: the complete guide for 2026 (with examples)
llms.txt is a plain-text file at /llms.txt that tells AI crawlers what to ingest first. Here's what the spec actually says, what it does and doesn't do, the format, and a working template you can ship today.
6 min read
EditorialThe brand homepage is dying. Here is what replaces it.
Zero-click search is at 65% and rising. Buyers no longer visit your site to learn about you — they ask AI. The brands that win the next decade will be the ones designed to be cited, not visited.
6 min read
EditorialHow to fix incorrect brand mentions in AI search
If ChatGPT or Perplexity is saying something wrong about your brand, traditional SEO will not fix it. Here's the diagnostic and the repair sequence — based on what actually moves the needle in 30 to 90 days.
6 min read
EditorialHow to appear in Google AI Overviews: a step-by-step guide
AI Overviews now appear in 25.11% of Google searches. Most brands don't know how to land in them. Here's the working method, what actually moves the needle, and what doesn't.
8 min read
EditorialWhat is Generative Engine Optimization? A working guide for 2026
GEO is the discipline of making your brand citable inside the answers AI models give. Here's a working definition, the four surfaces it operates on, the signals it actually responds to, and how to measure it.
8 min read
EditorialGEO pricing in 2026: what AI search optimization actually costs
Real numbers from the GEO services market in 2026 — productized audits, sprint pricing, retainer ranges, and what changes the cost band. Includes ES and EN market benchmarks.
7 min read
EditorialAEO vs GEO vs SEO: what is the difference and which do you need?
Three labels, two real disciplines, one underlying technical foundation. Here's the difference that matters, the difference that doesn't, and what to actually do depending on where your brand is today.
6 min read
ReferenceSchema markup for AI: the complete JSON-LD reference for ChatGPT and Perplexity
Ten production-ready schema templates AI models actually extract from. Organization, FAQPage, Service, Article, Person, Product, BreadcrumbList, Event, HowTo, VideoObject — copy-paste ready.
8 min read
EditorialMeasuring Share of Answer: a working definition
Share of Answer is the percentage of relevant prompts in which a brand is cited inside an AI-generated answer. Here's how we measure it.
1 min read
EditorialWhy we don't build on WordPress
WordPress is a content platform from a different era. Here's why a Next.js or Astro site outperforms it for AI search.
1 min read
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