The Citation Tracker queries AI answer engines directly with your site’s topics and checks whether your content gets cited in their responses. It works with Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.
This is a Pro feature. It requires an active Pro license.
Accessing the Citation Tracker
Go to AEO God Mode > Citations in your admin sidebar (admin.php?page=aeo-god-mode#/citations).
If you don’t have a Pro license, you’ll see a gate screen describing the feature. Activate your license in AEO God Mode > Settings to unlock it.
Step 1: Add API Keys
The tracker needs API keys for the AI engines you want to monitor. You can connect one or all four.
- Click API Keys in the top-right corner
- You’ll see four engines listed:
– Perplexity — Uses the sonar model via api.perplexity.ai
– ChatGPT — Uses gpt-4o-mini-search-preview via api.openai.com
– Gemini — Uses gemini-2.5-flash with Google Search grounding via generativelanguage.googleapis.com
– Claude — Uses claude-haiku-4-5 with web search tool via api.anthropic.com
- Click Add Key next to the engine you want to connect
- Paste your API key and click Save
Security: API keys are encrypted using AES-256-CBC with your WordPress LOGGED_IN_SALT and AUTH_SALT as the encryption key and IV. Keys never leave your server and are stored encrypted in your WordPress options table.
Step 2: Run a Citation Check
Once at least one API key is configured:
- Click Run Check
- The tracker generates up to 20 queries based on your content:
– Questions from your top 5 categories (e.g., “What are the best resources about [category]?”)
– Questions from your top 5 most-commented posts (e.g., “What should I know about [post title]?”)
– A brand query (e.g., “What is [your site name] and what do they do?”)
– Questions from posts with schema overrides applied
- Each query is sent to every connected engine
- The response text is scanned for your domain name
- If your domain appears, it’s counted as a citation
This process can take 30-60 seconds depending on how many engines are connected. There’s a 500ms delay between queries to avoid rate limits.
Understanding the Results
Dashboard Stats (4 cards)
- Total Citations — Number of times your domain was found in AI responses across all checks
- Checks Run — Total number of query-engine combinations tested
- Hit Rate — Percentage: (total citations / total checks) × 100
- Last Check — Timestamp of the most recent check
Per-Engine Breakdown
Shows citation count grouped by engine (e.g., “12 citations — Perplexity”), so you can see which AI systems cite you most.
Most Cited Pages
A ranked bar chart showing which of your URLs appear most frequently in AI responses, sorted by citation count.
Recent Checks Table
A detailed log of each individual check, showing:
| Column | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Engine | Which AI system was queried |
| Query | The exact prompt sent |
| Cited? | ✓ if your domain appeared, ✗ if not |
| URL | The specific URL that was cited (if found) |
| Time | When the check ran |
The table shows the 20 most recent results, newest first.
Automatic Scheduled Checks
The tracker runs automatically on a twice-daily cron schedule (every 12 hours) using asgm_twice_daily cron interval. You don’t need to manually run checks after initial setup, but you can trigger one any time with the Run Check button.
Data Retention
- Results: The last 500 individual check results are stored (
asgm_citation_results) - History: 90 days of daily aggregated stats (checks count & citation count per day) stored in
asgm_citation_history
Troubleshooting
“No queries could be generated” error:
- You need published content. The tracker uses your categories and posts to build queries. Publish at least a few posts before running a check
Run Check button is disabled:
- You need at least one API key configured. Click the API Keys button and add one
Engine shows error in recent checks:
- Check that your API key is valid and has sufficient credits/quota
- API errors are logged with the HTTP status code for debugging
Zero citations despite having content:
- This is normal early on. AI systems take time to learn about your site
- Make sure you have a
robots.txtthat allows AI crawlers - Check that your llms.txt is active and serving correctly
- Improve your citability score (see the Citability Score page)