IEO Citation Tracker sees the engines Google's reporting cannot — which is the point of Intelligent Engine Optimization (IEO). Alongside the pages Google reports, 51 further pages carried logged citation events absent from Google's AI report entirely, because they belong to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Applebot and DuckAssist. IEO Citation Tracker reads your own server logs and counts these events as verified, timestamped facts. Method and denominators.
NEW — 16 AUG 2026 · IEO Citation Tracker v1.21.0 is available. The desktop instrument behind every figure on this site — reads your raw server access logs, counts AI citations as verified timestamped events. 952 verified events across three properties in 75 days. Runs offline. Download →
The mechanism by which AI citation engines identify and label the sources used to generate specific portions of a response. Citation attribution may be inline (numbered footnote markers within the response text) or aggregate (a list of sources at the end of the response). Some AI engines provide no visible attribution while still using sources behind the scenes.
Citation attribution patterns vary across AI platforms. Perplexity provides explicit numbered citations with hyperlinks. ChatGPT may cite sources within text or in a sources panel. Google AI Overview shows source links in expanded views. Apple Intelligence and Gemini have varying attribution approaches.
Tracking citation attribution requires monitoring each AI platform's citation interface separately. The IEO Engine measurement framework documents citation events across all major platforms — including platforms where attribution is invisible to users but identifiable through server access log analysis of crawler retrieval patterns.