AUGUST 10, 2026 — In a new Forbes article that discusses why AI platforms avoid citing branded content, the author highlights original Seer research on ghost citations. A ghost citation occurs when AI sources your content but doesn't mention your brand.
We analyzed half a million LLM responses across 20 brands and found that brands in industries like Hospitality & Travel had citation gaps of up to 20 percentage points. Despite having two equally established brands, only one consistently surfaced in recommendation contexts.
An Semrush study corroborated our findings: they found 62% of AI citations included a site referral link but no brand mention. Per their study, only 13% of citations included both a source link and brand mention in the AI response.
Ghost citations are a brand entity recognition problem. Adding more content could make things even worse. Start tracking your ghost citation rate as a GEO brand health KPI: competitive ghost citations as a percentage of total brand citations, tracked monthly, segmented by platform and funnel stage.
We also recommend these 3 steps to help solve a ghost citation problem (you can find more detail in our ghost citation study):
1. Make your brand name inseparable from your key claims
2. Build AI-readable signals to connect your brand to your category expertise (schema, Wikidata and Wikipedia entries, etc.)
3. Earn third-party mentions that recommend your brand
Check out our research on ghost citations: LLM Ghost Citations: Why Your Content Is Working and Your Brand Isn't
Read the Forbes article: Why AI Search Doesn't Trust Your Branded Content