Why does AI cite my page but not name my brand?

Because citing and naming are separate steps. The engine retrieves your page for a fact, then paraphrases the fact in its own words, and unless your brand name is part of the claim itself, nothing ties the sentence back to you. The link becomes a footnote most readers never open. Getting named means binding your name to the fact on the page and building enough entity strength that the model treats you as the answer, not just a document it read.

What's the single highest-leverage move to get named?

Own an original, quotable fact and attribute it to yourself in the sentence. 'Buffy Intel's 2026 analysis found…' rather than a bare statistic. Models tend to carry the attribution when the claim and the source are one sentence, and first-hand data is far more likely to be named than a fact you restated from someone else. Being the origin of a claim, not a rehasher of it, is what earns the name.

How do I know if getting named is working?

Track your mention rate separately from your citation rate, per engine. A June 2026 Semrush study found the two barely correlate. Gemini names brands far more than it links them, ChatGPT the reverse, so a single blended number hides the gap. Watch mention rate climb toward citation rate on each engine over time; that closing gap is the signal the work is landing.

How to get named, not just cited, in AI answers

Being cited is not being named. An AI engine can lift a fact from your page, link it as a source, and never say who you are. A ghost citation, and by one June 2026 count the single most common way brands appear in AI answers. This playbook closes that gap: it's about making your brand name travel with your facts, so the engine attributes the claim to you instead of quietly using it. It's the action companion to ghost citations: cited but not named; the moves build on each other, roughly in order of leverage.

1. Bind your name to the fact on the page

The root cause is paraphrase: the model restates your fact in its own words, and if your name wasn't part of the claim, nothing survives to attribute. So write the claim and the source as one unit.

Attribute your own data in-sentence: "Buffy Intel's mid-2026 analysis found…", not a free-floating statistic.
Put the brand name near the numbers, in prose and in table captions, not only in the logo and footer.
Use subject-predicate-object statements the model can lift whole ("Buffy Intel tracks AI visibility daily"), so the sentence carries the name if it's quoted.

The test: could a model copy your key sentence verbatim and still know who said it? If the name only lives in the page chrome, expect a ghost citation.

2. Be the origin of the claim, not a rehasher

Engines are far likelier to name the source of an original fact than to name the tenth site to repeat it. If you're restating someone else's number, the engine will (rightly) attribute it to them.

Publish first-hand data, benchmarks, or definitions others don't have. The original-data formats that get named because you're the only source.
Coin and consistently use precise terms for concepts you own; a named concept carries its namer.
Where you must cite others, add your own analysis on top, so there's a claim that is genuinely yours to name.

3. Strengthen the entity so the model associates the topic with you

Naming is an entity decision. A model names a brand when it's confident that brand is part of the answer, which is entity strength, the slowest but most durable lever.

Ship consistent Organization and author schema so machines resolve "who" unambiguously.
Keep naming consistent across your own site, profiles, and third-party mentions. Alternating names dilutes the association.
Build knowledge-graph presence and topic co-occurrence so your name and your category are linked in the model's representation, not just on your pages.

4. Earn corroboration that repeats your name

The name that recurs across independent sources is the one a model learns to attach to a topic. This is the same corroboration mechanism that decides citations. Pointed at your name rather than your links.

Pursue earned mentions in third-party coverage, reviews, and community discussion where your brand is named, not just linked.
Aim for your name and your key facts to co-occur across sources, so the association is corroborated rather than self-asserted.
Don't fake it: manufactured mentions get discounted, and gaming the signal backfires.

5. Measure mention rate as its own line

You can't close a gap you don't track. Citation rate and mention rate decouple. The June 2026 Semrush study found a ~74.9% citation rate against a ~38.3% mention rate across four engines, with Gemini and ChatGPT nearly mirror-imaged, so measuring one hides the other.

Metric	The question it answers	When it's low
Citation rate	Is my page used as a source?	Supply problem: reachability, extractability, freshness
Mention rate	Does the answer say my name?	Entity problem: weak association, no on-page attribution

Track both, per engine and per market, and watch the mention rate climb toward the citation rate. That closing gap is the signal the work above is landing. This is exactly the two-lens split. Supply versus demand. Measured over time.

Earning the citation is a content job; earning the name is an entity job. Make your brand name part of the fact on the page, be the origin of claims worth repeating, and let corroboration make the association stick, then measure the name, not just the link.

What not to do

Don't chase the mention with tricks. Stuffing your brand name into every sentence reads as spam to both readers and models and won't survive paraphrase; buying mentions gets discounted the same way manufactured citations do. The honest levers. Own the fact, attribute it to yourself, build the entity, earn corroboration. Are the ones that compound.

Getting named is a different discipline from getting cited, and it needs its own number on the dashboard. Tracking mention rate against citation rate, per engine and per market, is what Buffy Intel is built to do. Questions: [email protected].