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AI Citation Index

Domain concentration, source categories, and prompt intent across aggregate AI citation appearances. Answer pages, reference facts, and live trackers drawn from this study.

Published 17 December 2025 · Updated 14 October 2026

22 results

Answer

Which sources dominate AI citations?

YouTube leads the current Trakkr index with 2.75% of citation appearances, followed by google.com at 1.56% and Reddit at 1.50%. Together, the top three account for 5.82%.

Answer

How concentrated is the AI citation landscape?

The top three domains account for 5.82% of citation appearances, while the index spans 725,777 unique domains and 3.69 million cited URLs. That is a visible head followed by a very broad tail.

Answer

Does AI rely more on reference sites than the open web?

The index cannot support that claim. Reference sources account for 1.48%, while 88.40% remains unclassified in “other”. The taxonomy is too partial to compare reference sites with the open web as a whole.

Answer

Does social content matter for AI citations?

Yes. Social sources account for 6.11% of citation appearances in the current index, led by YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn.

Answer

Do review sites still matter to AI models?

Review sources account for 1.11% of citation appearances in the current index.

Answer

How often do docs get cited by AI?

Domains in the current docs map account for 0.18% of citation appearances. That is a partial category result, not a complete measure of documentation pages across the web.

Answer

Why does Wikipedia still get cited so often?

English Wikipedia does not lead the current index. It ranks fourth with 1,088,242 citation appearances, or 1.35%, behind YouTube at 2.75%, google.com at 1.56%, and Reddit at 1.50%.

Answer

How big is the competitive set for AI citations?

The current index contains 725,777 unique cited domains across 1,928 tracked brands. That is the observed citation surface, although not every cited domain is a commercial competitor.

Answer

What source categories show up most in AI answers?

Social is the largest named category at 6.11%, followed by reference at 1.48% and reviews at 1.11%. However, 88.40% remains in “other”, so the source-type taxonomy is incomplete.

Answer

Do brands need third-party sources to win AI citations?

This index alone cannot answer that. It aggregates cited domains but does not label ownership for every URL or provide an experimental comparison between owned-only and third-party strategies.

Answer

What should a brand prioritize after reading the source data?

Start by mapping which domains recur for the brand’s tracked prompts, then separate observed source gaps from assumptions. The public index is a benchmark, not proof that one source strategy causes visibility.

Answer

Does raw domain count matter more than repeat-cited authority?

Raw domain count and repeat citation count answer different questions. The index shows 725,777 domains and a 5.82% share for the top three, but it does not measure “authority” as a causal variable.

Reference fact

YouTube leads the current citation index

YouTube ranks first in the October 14, 2026 snapshot, ahead of google.com and Reddit.

Reference fact

The citation graph spans more than 700,000 domains

The long tail is enormous even when the head is concentrated.

Reference fact

Reference sites are the clearest named source family

Reference is the second-largest named source class, behind social, although the unclassified tail is far larger.

Reference fact

Social sources are material, not noise

YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn keep appearing in the citation layer.

Reference fact

Review sites are small in share but high in intent

Review domains are a smaller slice of raw volume than many teams expect.

Reference fact

Docs are a niche but important citation layer

Docs are not broad recommendation winners, but they show up when the prompt becomes technical.

Reference fact

Most citations remain unclassified by source type

Most citation volume sits outside the hand-maintained named source map.

Reference fact

The current index tracks more than 3.6 million cited URLs

AI systems do not just cite domains. They return to a large but finite set of pages.

Tracker

AI citation share by source category

Current category mix in the live Trakkr citation index.

Tracker

Top cited domains in the live index

Current head domains in Trakkr’s live public citation graph.