ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode all show sources: a numbered link, a card, or a list at the end of the answer. Each is a citation. A brand cited on a question its clients ask gets a visit when the reader clicks, and a mention in front of everyone who does not.
Citations go to pages the assistant could read and that said something precise about the question. Pages blocked to AI crawlers, pages whose text is only built in the browser, and pages that talk around a subject without a clear statement are rarely cited. Tracking citations means repeating the same questions over time and noting which sources appear.