---
title: "Dissect AI citations to find where to build brand mentions"
description: "Run enough prompts to collect a few hundred URLs the assistants cite, then have an LLM sort them into competitors, homepages, listicles, directories, marketplaces and UGC and flag whether your brand is mentioned or linked. Work directories and marketplaces first, then UGC threads and outreach. Owning the citation set is how brand mentions enter AI answers."
url: "https://seo-mcp.io/t/dissect-ai-citations-to-find-where-to-build-brand-mentions"
---

# Dissect AI citations to find where to build brand mentions

Run enough prompts to collect a few hundred URLs the assistants cite, then have an LLM sort them into competitors, homepages, listicles, directories, marketplaces and UGC and flag whether your brand is mentioned or linked. Work directories and marketplaces first, then UGC threads and outreach. Owning the citation set is how brand mentions enter AI answers.

## Prerequisites

- A logged set of URLs cited by the AI assistants you track
- Access to an LLM to categorise the URL list
- A crawler or spreadsheet to record mention and link status

## Steps

1. **Collect the citation URLs** — Run your prompts against the assistants you care about and log every URL cited in the answers, then deduplicate. The source targets at least 250-500 unique URLs before moving on.
   Check: A deduplicated list contains at least 250 unique citation URLs.
2. **Categorize the citations with an LLM** — Paste the URL list into an LLM and ask it to sort each citation into competitors, homepages, listicles (from non-competitors), directories, marketplaces and UGC.
   Check: Every row in the output carries exactly one of the six categories.
3. **Crawl each citation for mention and link status** — Fetch every URL and record whether your brand appears, whether the link points directly to your domain, and where it points when it does not.
   Check: Each row has a mention column and a link-target column filled from the live page.
4. **Work directories and marketplaces first** — For every directory or marketplace citation, submit or update the brand listing so the page names your brand and links to your domain.
   Check: Each directory and marketplace row has a submission status and a live listing URL.
5. **Build a UGC target list** — Filter the UGC citations that keep recurring and expand them with more threads answering the same queries, as the source did with Quora threads for its book keywords.
   Check: The list maps each UGC thread URL to the query it answers.
6. **Answer the UGC threads** — Post answers that genuinely resolve the thread and mention your resource where relevant. The source uses an automated daily schedule of three replies per day; manual, varied answers avoid the filter and spam risk the schedule is designed around.
   Check: Each thread URL shows your published answer.
7. **Run outreach on the remaining citations** — Email the listicle and non-competitor page owners with an offer framed around what is in it for them; the source uses a 'Paid collaboration' subject line or a free-copy offer to lift open rates.
   Check: The outreach log records page URL, subject line and reply status for each contact.

## Source

@aeoexpert on 2026-10-19: https://x.com/aeoexpert/status/2112181831239905598

Canonical: https://seo-mcp.io/t/dissect-ai-citations-to-find-where-to-build-brand-mentions