Citation rate

High mentions with low citations is the most common pattern for established small businesses, and it means the engines learned about you second-hand: directories, review platforms, forum threads and press are doing the talking, while your own site contributes nothing the engines consider quotable. That is fragile, because your reputation in answers is only as accurate and current as other people's pages about you. Raising citation rate means making your site the best source about itself: pages that answer buyer questions directly, served as plain readable HTML, with claims specific enough to be worth quoting. The reverse pattern, decent citations but few mentions in recommendation answers, points the other way: your content works but your brand lacks the third-party corroboration engines want before recommending anyone. Read together, the two numbers show which half of AEO needs the next quarter's effort.