# Rank tracking, mentions and site signals

Source: https://auditae.app/docs/tracking-and-mentions

Track Google rankings and AI Overview citations per keyword, monitor brand mentions in AI answers and on the open web, and check platform and authority.

Beyond the citation audit, each site carries standing signals you pull on demand — Google rank tracking, brand-mention monitoring, and off-audit site health. They live on the site's **Traffic → Keywords**, **Citations → Mentions** and **Technical** tabs and are powered by DataForSEO.

## Keyword rank tracking + AI Overview citation

On a site's **Traffic → Keywords** tab, track any keyword to watch its Google position over time. Each check (**$0.05**) runs a live SERP read and reports, alongside the rank:

- **AI Overview citation** — whether Google shows an AI Overview for the keyword and, if so, whether *your* domain is one of its cited sources. The headline answer-engine signal: a green **AI Overview · cited** badge means you're in the AI answer; amber means the overview exists but skips you.
- **Search-volume trend** — a 12-month, year-over-year demand trend (rising / fading) so a growing keyword is obvious at a glance, not hidden behind a single volume number.
- **Other SERP features** — featured-snippet ownership and the rich elements present on the page.

Each keyword is checked on Google in the country you pick when you track it (the default comes from your site's domain, e.g. a .se site starts on Sweden). To follow the same keyword in another country, track it again with that country. Tracked keywords refresh automatically once a week; hit the refresh icon on any row to re-check on demand. Each refresh is a $0.05 check, and a keyword is skipped while the balance can't cover it.

**Backfill history (one-time):** a freshly-tracked keyword's trend chart starts empty. Hit the history icon on its row to pull up to **12 months** of past rank + AI-Overview presence from DataForSEO's historical SERP *database* (pre-collected snapshots) — the chart goes from blank to a full year instantly. $0.25 one-time, and you're only charged if history is actually found.

AEBOT can do all of this in chat (`track_keyword`, `refresh_keyword_rank`, `backfill_keyword_history`) — see [Using AEBOT](https://auditae.app/docs/aebot).

## Brand mention monitoring

The **Citations → Mentions** tab has two mention explorers that together cover your full share of voice — both save to the site's **Reports** tab:

- **AI citations** ($0.75 per pull) — DataForSEO's historical LLM-mentions corpus: every observed AI prompt where a domain or keyword shows up across Google AI Overviews + ChatGPT, the answer, and every cited source with position and a 12-month trend. Works for competitors too.
- **Open-web mentions** ($0.25 per scan) — a web-wide brand-mention scan over DataForSEO's content index: news, blogs, forums, and listings that mention your brand, each tagged **positive / negative / neutral**. Filter by content vertical; negative mentions surface first so you can triage reputation items.

Comparing the two shows where open-web buzz hasn't yet reached the AI models — exactly where new content pays off.

The same pulls are available to agents over MCP as `explore_llm_mentions` and `explore_web_mentions` — see [Connect Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor](https://auditae.app/docs/mcp).

## Technical tab — platform & authority

A site's **Technical** tab carries two at-a-glance health cards beside the crawl + Core Web Vitals, both free (the DataForSEO cost is absorbed):

- **Platform** — detects the site's CMS / stack (WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, frameworks, analytics) so recommendations match how you actually publish — and surfaces the WordPress plugin path when it applies.
- **Authority** — an on-demand backlink snapshot (domain rank 0–1000, referring domains, dofollow split, spam score, broken links) from DataForSEO's link index. A major driver of why competitors out-rank and out-cite you; cached on the site after the first check.

When the platform is WordPress, [pair the AuditAE plugin](https://auditae.app/docs/wordpress-pairing) so AEBOT and your agents can apply fixes directly.

## Further reading

- [AI Overviews tracker](https://auditae.app/ai-overviews-tracker) — monitoring Google AI Overview citations.
- [ChatGPT brand monitoring](https://auditae.app/chatgpt-brand-monitoring), plus [Perplexity](https://auditae.app/perplexity-brand-monitoring) and [Gemini](https://auditae.app/gemini-brand-monitoring) — per-engine citation checks.
- [Best tools to track mentions in ChatGPT](https://auditae.app/blog/best-tools-track-mentions-chatgpt) and [best SERP trackers](https://auditae.app/blog/best-serp-trackers) — how AuditAE compares.