Practical Ecommerce Merchant

July 2, 2025

Co-Citation and AI

How Co-Citations Drive AI SEO

“Co-citations” in academia refer to a single research document that cites two or more sources. Yet web pages contain co-citations, too. Search engine optimizers have long suspected that Google relies on co-citations to identify similar sites.

We see evidence of co-citations on Google’s entity-based search results, such as lists of vendors and service providers.

Co-Citation and AI

With the launch of AI answers, co-citation is critical because all AI platforms — AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, others — heavily on lists for brand and product recommendations. For the search “best CRM solutions,” for example, AI Overviews cite five sources. All are lists.

The sources do not have to link to their recommendations for large language models to cite them. Hence for AI optimization, co-occurrences (i.e., unlinked mentions) are as important as co-citations (e.g., linked mentions).

The less your brand appears on external websites, the lower its visibility in AI answers (and search). And the brands most commonly listed alongside yours — linked or not — define its relevance and visibility.

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