What Is Citadex? A Guide to Answer Engine Optimization
Citadex tracks whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other AI engines recommend your brand, finds the gaps, writes the content that closes them, publishes it to your own channels and follows AI visits through to leads and revenue.
What Citadex does
Citadex is an Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) platform. Where SEO is about ranking in a list of links, AEO is about being named, cited and recommended inside the answers that AI engines write. Citadex asks those engines the questions your customers ask, shows you who they recommend and which sources they cite, gives you the tools to change the answer, and measures how many visits, leads and how much revenue AI brings in.
From found by AI to revenue
Every page in Citadex sits on one funnel. When a step drops, go to the page for that step:
| Step | The question it answers | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Can AI crawlers get in, and can agents read your site? | AI Traffic → AI crawlers, Agents |
| Understanding | Is what AI says about your prices, phone number and products right? | Prompt Tracking → Brand searches |
| Citation | Which sources does AI cite, and which are yours? | Citation Sources |
| Recommendation | How many questions are you recommended in, and at what rank? | Workspace "From mention to recommendation", Prompt Tracking, Competitors, Prompt Library → Coverage |
| Selection | Can an agent find your price or book a demo on your site? | AI Traffic → Agents (Simulated agent tasks) |
| Referral / agent action | How many people and agents arrive from AI? | AI Traffic |
| Lead | Which leads come from AI? | Revenue Attribution |
| Pipeline | How much pipeline does AI bring? | Revenue Attribution |
| Revenue | Orders and revenue from AI | Revenue Attribution (including Experiments) |
For the full order of work, see End-to-end workflow.
The four loops
- Monitor. Every tracked prompt is really sent to each AI engine. You see whether you are mentioned, at what position, the recommendation level, which sources the engine cited, and whether it got your brand facts wrong. Pages: Workspace, Prompt Tracking, Citation Sources, Competitors.
- Create. From any gap you can generate an article written the way AI engines cite: single articles in Answer Assets, strategy articles from Prompt Tracking, or scheduled generation with Autopilot. Everything is grounded in your Content Rules and Brand Knowledge.
- Publish. Content goes out through Integrations: your own site first (GitHub, WordPress, Shopify, Ghost, Webflow, Wix, hosted blog, Content API) and third-party platforms through the browser extension. Every channel records the real URL.
- Measure. Prompt Tracking records achievements and retest results; AI Traffic shows AI crawlers and visitors who arrive from AI answers; Revenue Attribution connects those visits to leads, deals and orders.
At the start of each week, This week’s tasks at the top of the Workspace lists what is most worth doing first; see This week’s tasks.
Which AI engines are covered
| Plan | Engines |
|---|---|
| Free | The standard 7: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode; China markets use Doubao, DeepSeek, Qwen and Kimi |
| Pro | The standard 7 (China markets need Business) |
| Business, Enterprise, agencies | Every engine: the standard 7 plus Grok, DeepSeek and Mistral, and Doubao, DeepSeek, Qwen and Kimi for China markets |
Which engines each market scans is set per market; see Engines and scans.
The pages at a glance
| Page | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Workspace | Visibility score, This week’s tasks, From mention to recommendation, Platform-wide changes, Performing Queries |
| New Project | Five-step wizard: URL and brand → business profile → prompts → first scan → create project |
| Prompt Library | Find and manage prompts per market; Coverage shows whether your prompts cover each buying stage and topic |
| Prompt Tracking | Results and evidence per prompt, plus AI searches, Brand searches, Retests, Achievements and Outreach |
| Citation Sources | Which sites AI cites, where you are missing, citation retention, market health and repair |
| Competitors | Share of voice, weighted recommendation share, prompt battlefield, competitor-only sources, prompt gaps |
| Brand Knowledge, Content Rules | The facts and rules writing is based on |
| Answer Assets, Content | Generate articles; review, edit and publish |
| AI Traffic | AI crawlers (by purpose), AI referrals, Agents, optimization plan |
| Revenue Attribution | AI visits → leads → deals → revenue, connections and experiments |
| Tools, Integrations | Stand-alone tools; publishing channels and search-engine signals |
The AI Assistant button in the bottom-right corner opens an assistant that explains the current page with your own data; see AI Assistant.
Who it is for
Marketing and content teams, SEO professionals moving into AI search, brand owners who need to know what AI says about them, growth and sales teams who need AI counted in revenue, and agencies managing several brands (one project per brand, with an optional white label; see White label).
Frequently asked questions
Is AEO the same as SEO? They overlap (authoritative, well-structured content helps both) but the goal differs: SEO wants the click, AEO wants to be cited and recommended. See AEO vs SEO.
Do I need to verify site ownership? Not for scans: they query public AI engines and read public pages. AI Traffic and Revenue Attribution need a script on your site or a connected data source.
Is anything published or charged without my approval? No. Every article waits in Content until you click publish; the AI Assistant, MCP and anything else that uses credits shows a quote first and runs only after you confirm.
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