# An AI competitor analysis template needs a column for AI citations > One topic lookup shows which sites Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT cite, and a rival or brand that is not cited is a finding in itself. URL: https://claudegpt.si/news/ai-competitor-analysis-template-citations-column Published: 2026-10-24T19:42:17.438Z Updated: 2026-10-25T19:42:17.404Z Author: ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom Section: AI Tools Topics: Competitor analysis, AI search, AI Overviews Publisher: ClaudeGPT Si ## Key takeaways - The AI citations column is filled once per topic: one AI Citation Finder run returns the share of answers that cite each site. - The lookup covers Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT only, not Perplexity or Gemini, and tracks the most asked questions. - Search Console's Generative AI performance report shows AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions for your own verified site only. An AI competitor analysis template differs from the classic kind by one column: how often AI answers cite each site. When Google's AI Overviews or ChatGPT answer a question in your market, they cite a few sources, and the sites they pick are not always the ones with the most traffic. A template that skips this column misses a rival that may be shaping what buyers read before they ever click. ## The column, defined The [competitor analysis template from seogeoaeo.ai](https://seogeoaeo.ai/blog/competitor-analysis-template) adds it as "AI citations": the share of AI answers on your main topic that cite each site. It sits beside the familiar columns for organic traffic, keywords, top pages, keyword gaps, links, content types and ads, with your own site in the first row. Two things set it apart from the rest of the sheet. First, it is filled once per topic, not once per rival. The other columns need a lookup per domain. Here a single lookup on your topic returns the sites cited most and the share of answers that cite each one, so every row is filled together. Second, an empty result is information. A rival, or you, that does not appear in the cited list gets "Not cited". That is a finding worth a decision, not a blank cell to ignore. ## How the data is gathered seogeoaeo.ai's AI Citation Finder runs in topic mode or site mode. In topic mode it returns the 25 pages cited in the most AI answers, with how many answers cite each page and the monthly searches behind them, plus the sites cited most and the share of answers that cite each. Because one answer can cite several sites, the shares can add up to more than 100%. The limits are worth stating plainly: - It covers Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT only. Perplexity and Gemini are not included. - The data provider tracks the questions people ask most, and far fewer ChatGPT answers than Google ones. Read the shares as a comparison between sites, not as a census. - A run that finds the topic but no cited pages is still charged; one where the provider has no record at all is refunded. A topic run costs 160 credits. For your own row, Google Search Console's Generative AI performance report, added in June 2026, shows AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions by page. It only covers sites you have verified, so it cannot fill a rival's row. ## What the column reveals The worked example in the source article makes the case. It uses an invented dental-booking app called Northfold, with invented rivals on .example domains. The biggest AI-citation number in the sheet does not belong to a product rival. It belongs to a trade magazine, cited in a quarter of AI answers on the topic, which sells nothing Northfold sells. Northfold itself is not cited. A traffic-only sheet would file the magazine as noise. The AI column turns it into a target: Northfold will not outrank it for its own articles, but getting mentioned on it puts Northfold on a page the answers already lean on. The article's decision is to offer the magazine a piece built on no-show data from Northfold's clinics, then recheck the citations column. ## Fitting it into the rest of the template The AI column is cheap relative to the others. The per-rival columns on [seogeoaeo.ai](https://seogeoaeo.ai) cost about 195 credits a row (Domain Overview 50, Competitor Keywords 35, Keyword Gap 85, and 25 for the Google, Meta and LinkedIn ad finders). The citations column costs 160 once. For a closer look at whether specific assistants name your brand when asked a question, AI Answer Visibility asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini directly for 120 credits, but it answers a different question from the template's. Plans start at $29 a month for 2,000 credits, and every tool shows its price before it runs. There is no ongoing tracking: each run is a snapshot. Refresh the sheet each quarter and treat a change in the citation share as real only when it holds across two refreshes, since providers revise their data. If you need AI visibility or rankings tracked continuously, a dedicated tracking suite is the better fit. ## Frequently asked questions ### Which AI assistants does the citations column cover? AI Citation Finder covers Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT. Perplexity and Gemini are not included. ### Why can citation shares add up to more than 100%? One AI answer can cite several sites, and that answer counts toward each site it cites. ### What does Not cited mean in the template? The site did not appear among the sites cited in AI answers on the topic, which is a finding to act on. ## Sources - [SEO competitor analysis template with a worked example](https://seogeoaeo.ai/blog/competitor-analysis-template), seogeoaeo.ai - [AI Citation Finder](https://seogeoaeo.ai/tools/ai-citation-finder), seogeoaeo.ai - [seogeoaeo.ai tool catalog with credit prices](https://seogeoaeo.ai/api/v1/tools), seogeoaeo.ai - [Generative AI performance reports in Search Console](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/06/gen-ai-performance-reports), Google Search Central - [seogeoaeo.ai pricing](https://seogeoaeo.ai/pricing), seogeoaeo.ai - [RFC 2606: Reserved Top Level DNS Names](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2606), IETF