A mention is when the AI names your business in its answer. A citation is when it links to or draws from a specific web source. They're not the same thing, and you can have one without the other.
This matters more than it sounds. Studies in 2026 found a large share of AI citations were "ghost citations" — a source used without the brand actually being named to the reader. So a page of yours can be feeding the answer while your business gets no visible credit, or your name can appear with no source behind it.
We track both separately, because "did they name me" and "did they use my content" are two different wins with two different fixes.