How to Use Ahrefs to Find Pages and Domains Cited in AI Answers

What does Ahrefs’ LLM feature measure: links and mentions or rankings?

Mentions and citations, not rankings. Ahrefs' help centre describes Brand Radar as a discovery tool that tracks how any brand shows up in AI answers. It reports:

• Mentions: answers in which a brand is named.
• Citations: answers that cite a URL, reported by domain and by page.
• Impressions and AI share of voice: mentions weighted by the search demand behind the prompts, and your share compared with competitors.
• Wider signals: search demand for the brand, web mentions, and brand presence on video platforms, as separate indexes.

It does not give your brand a position from one to ten in each answer the way a rank tracker does for Google results. Rankings remain the job of Ahrefs' Rank Tracker and Site Explorer, where AI Overviews appear as a search feature. The distinction matters because a page can earn many AI citations without ranking, and rank well without being cited.

Where does Brand Radar's data come from?

Ahrefs says its prompts are modelled on real keywords from its search database, and that it has collected AI responses since 2025. On its pricing page, it listed about 448 million monthly prompts, most of them AI Overviews (313 million), with around 30 million each for Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot, and 12.7 million for AI Mode. Because the prompts come from search keywords, they read more like searches than like long conversations. You can add custom prompts for exact buyer questions, on any supported platform including Claude, refreshed anywhere from monthly to daily.

How do you find the pages and domains cited for your brand?

1. Search for your brand in Brand Radar, then open the Cited Domains report. It lists the domains cited in answers that mention you.
2. Click the page count next to your own domain to see which of your URLs are cited. These are the pages assistants already trust. Protect them, keep them current, and link to them from related pages.
3. Look at third-party domains. Ahrefs points out that most citations for a brand come from other sites, not its own. Sort by the number of answers each domain appears in.
4. Open Cited Pages to see the exact URLs: review articles, comparisons, directories and forums.
5. Filter by platform. AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity often cite very different sources for the same topic, so check each one your buyers use.
6. Export the list and label each page: your own, a competitor's, or a third party, and whether it mentions you.

How do you find citation gaps with competitors?

The most useful pages are those that cite your competitors but not you:

1. Search for a competitor, or run an empty search on your topic, and open Cited Pages.
2. Filter to answers that mention the competitor but not your brand.
3. Rank the pages by how many answers cite them, across platforms.
4. Check each page: could you reasonably be included? Comparison articles, "best of" lists and directories usually can; a competitor's own blog cannot.
5. Plan outreach or content for the top 20, and track whether they start citing you.

Working through that list is covered in how to find high-frequency AI-cited sources for backlink outreach.

How do you track your own cited pages over time?

Site Explorer includes an AI citations view for your domain, with history and a filter for AI Overviews. Use it monthly to see which pages gained or lost citations, and set that beside organic rankings. Pages that lose citations while rankings hold often need updating: stale figures, outdated screenshots or missing answers to newer questions. Ahrefs' own research found that AI Overview citations change often, so judge trends over several weeks, not single days.

Which report answers which question?

What does it cost?

As listed by Ahrefs:

Claude is available through custom prompts, and each Claude check uses 8 checks. If you only need citation research for one engine, a single index is often enough. For example, AI Overviews alone covers most of the database's prompts.

What are the limits?

• Search-style prompts: the database mirrors keywords, so conversational and multi-step questions are under-represented. Add custom prompts for those.
• Snapshots, not certainty: answers and citations change frequently, so any one month's list is a sample.
• Cost for many engines: full coverage costs $699 a month for all AI platform indexes.
• Mentions without citations: a brand can be named without any URL cited, so read mention and citation figures separately.

Other ways to find cited pages, including free manual methods, are in how to find which pages AI answer engines cite for your target questions. Ahrefs is compared with other suites in BrightEdge vs Semrush vs Ahrefs and Similarweb vs Ahrefs.

What might a citation audit look like?

Consider an illustrative CRM company, Tidepool, with the AI Overviews and ChatGPT indexes. Its Cited Domains report showed its own site cited in about 5% of answers that mentioned it, while two software review sites and a comparison blog accounted for over a third. Cited Pages showed that competitors appeared in twelve "best CRM for small business" articles that did not mention Tidepool. The team contacted the eight still being updated, and refreshed its own pricing and integrations pages, the two URLs Site Explorer showed losing citations. Three months later, four of the articles included Tidepool, and it appeared in more AI Overview answers for those topics.

What do people ask about Ahrefs and AI citations?

Does Ahrefs track AI rankings?

No. Brand Radar measures mentions, citations and impressions. Rankings stay in Rank Tracker and Site Explorer.

Which AI platforms does Brand Radar cover?

Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot in its database, with Claude through custom prompts.

Can I see competitors' cited pages?

Yes. Brand Radar works for any brand or topic, not just your own.

How much does Brand Radar cost?

$199 a month per AI platform, or $699 for all.