ChatGPT Citations: How to Find the Questions That Already Cite Your Site
Find your ChatGPT citations without guessing prompts: three methods compared, what each shows, and how to act on the questions AI already cites you for.
Sathi··6 min read
Sathi
Founder, DidYouSEO
Coder turned marketer, now learning SEO in public and writing about it while building DidYouSEO.
Most people check their ChatGPT citations the same way: think of a question, ask ChatGPT, see if their site shows up. That only finds the questions you already thought of. The questions that actually bring AI traffic are usually ones you'd never have guessed.
This guide works the other way round. You start from your domain and find the questions ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews already cite it for. It compares three ways to do that, what each one can and can't show, and what to do with the list once you have it.
Why guessing prompts misses most of your citations
People don't ask AI assistants short keywords. They ask long, specific questions, and the assistant often rewrites them into several searches before it answers. We see this in our own Search Console: three queries in the last 28 days read like AI prompts, for example "which keyword research tools are best if my main goal is competitive benchmarking across several rival domains". No one would write that as a test prompt.
So a list of 10 prompts you wrote yourself tells you whether ChatGPT knows your brand. It doesn't tell you where you're already being cited. Both are useful. Our guide on checking if ChatGPT knows your brand covers the first. This one covers the second.
Before you start: let ChatGPT's search crawler in
ChatGPT can only cite pages its search crawler can read. OpenAI's crawler documentation is clear: "Sites that are opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though can still appear as navigational links."
Check your robots.txt with the free robots.txt tester. If OAI-SearchBot is blocked, fix that first. Nothing below will find citations you've opted out of. Our guide to OpenAI's three crawlers explains which one does what.
Three ways to find your ChatGPT citations
| Method | What it shows | What it misses | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ask ChatGPT yourself | Whether you're cited for questions you choose | Every question you didn't think of | Free, slow |
| Server logs | Which pages ChatGPT-User fetched to answer someone | The question that was asked | Free if you can read logs |
| Search a database of AI answers | The questions, the answer, and which page it cited | Questions outside the database | Paid data |
1. Ask ChatGPT yourself
Turn on search, ask your question, and open the sources. Do it in a logged-out or temporary chat so your history doesn't steer the answer. It's free and it's the only way to see the exact answer a real user gets. But you're limited to the questions you can think of, and one run is one sample: ask again tomorrow and the sources may change.
2. Read your server logs
When ChatGPT browses a page to answer someone, the visit shows up in your logs as ChatGPT-User. That tells you which pages AI is reading in real time, which is real first-hand evidence. It doesn't tell you what was asked. DidYouSEO's bot traffic tracker shows these visits per page if you can't read raw logs.
3. Search a database of AI answers
Some data providers keep large collections of AI answers. DataForSEO's LLM Mentions API is one: each record has the question, the AI's answer, the sources it cited and a monthly AI search volume. You can search it by domain, which turns the problem around. Instead of asking "am I cited for this question?", you ask "which questions cite me?". Its ChatGPT data covers US English only.
How to find your ChatGPT citations in DidYouSEO
The "Find my questions" button in DidYouSEO's AI visibility section runs method 3 for you:
- Open AI visibility for your site and click Find my questions.
- You get up to 50 questions from ChatGPT and up to 50 from Google's AI Overviews, sorted by how often each one is asked per month.
- Each row shows the question, your page that the answer cites, or Mentioned, not linked if it names you without a link, and the other brands the same answer names.
- Click + on any question to add it to your weekly tracked questions.
One lookup costs 5 AI credits, which come with paid plans, and the result is saved, so reopening it later is free. The same US English limit applies.
What to do with the list
Update the page that's cited. Those pages already earn AI citations. Keep their facts current and their main answer in the first paragraph, so they keep winning.
Fix "mentioned, not linked". If ChatGPT names you but cites someone else, the cited page answers the question better than your own. Read it, then write the page you're missing.
Look at who else is named. The brands next to yours are the competitors AI sees for that question. That's often a different list from your Google competitors.
Answer the next question. Cited questions come in clusters. If you're cited for "free tools to compare two sites", the follow-up questions are your next pages.
Track the questions that matter. One lookup is a snapshot. Track your top questions weekly to see when a citation appears or drops.
What a citation is, and isn't, worth
A citation isn't a click. Pew Research Center found people clicked a link inside Google's AI summaries on only 1% of visits. Being cited still puts your name in front of the buyer at the moment they decide, and our post on AI citations vs mentions explains why mentions often matter more than links.
Google's side works the same way: its AI features documentation says pages need no special markup, only to be indexed and eligible for a snippet. The work that earns citations is the same work that earns rankings.
Common mistakes
- Testing only your brand name. "What is DidYouSEO?" proves ChatGPT knows you. Buyers ask about the problem, not your name.
- Trusting one run. AI answers vary between runs. Look for questions that cite you repeatedly, not once.
- Treating the database as complete. It holds a large sample of questions, not every question anyone asked. Use it to discover, then track.
- Blocking OAI-SearchBot to stop training. Training is a different crawler, GPTBot. Blocking the search crawler removes you from ChatGPT search answers.
FAQ
How do I find my ChatGPT citations?
Ask ChatGPT with search on and check the sources, read your server logs for ChatGPT-User visits, or search a database of AI answers by your domain. Only the last one shows questions you didn't think of.
Why doesn't ChatGPT cite my site?
Check that robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot first. OpenAI says opted-out sites will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. After that, it's usually that another page answers the question more directly.
Does a ChatGPT citation bring traffic?
Sometimes, but not often. Pew found 1% of visits clicked a link inside Google's AI summaries. The bigger value is being named when someone is choosing.
Is the data available outside the US?
DataForSEO's ChatGPT data, which DidYouSEO uses, covers US English only. For other markets, ask ChatGPT directly and check your logs.
How often should I check?
Run a full lookup monthly to find new questions, and track your most important questions weekly.