Why does Gemini sometimes cite nothing?

Because grounding did not fire for that prompt. The model answered from weights alone. We return that as a distinct state.

Does login change what Gemini cites?

It can. Personalisation is why we treat Gemini numbers as directional rather than identity-free, and why we run a small pool of accounts rather than one.

Gemini app citations tracking

geminicitationsAccount required

Gemini only cites when grounding fires, and grounding does not fire on every prompt. Nostimates collects from genuine signed-in accounts we own, records whether grounding ran at all, and reports citation frequency across n samples so an ungrounded run is visible rather than counted as zero citations.

How it renders

Grounding chips beneath the answer plus a sources drawer that opens on demand.

Sampling

Citation sets are the least stable field we return. The same prompt run n times will produce overlapping but non-identical URL sets, which is why we report frequency across samples rather than a list from one run.

Gotcha

An ungrounded Gemini answer has no citations by design. Averaging those runs in as zeroes understates citation share badly — we flag them as a separate grounding_rate rather than folding them into the mean.

What the API returns

A single collection call against Gemini app for the citations field, sampled n times and returned as one object per prompt.

{
  "engine": "gemini",
  "field": "citations",
  "prompt": "best ai visibility tracking tool",
  "country": "GB",
  "language": "en",
  "n": 30,
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://nostimates.com/engines",
      "domain": "nostimates.com",
      "position": 1,
      "sample_frequency": 0.63
    },
    {
      "url": "https://example.org/guide",
      "domain": "example.org",
      "position": 3,
      "sample_frequency": 0.4
    }
  ]
}

GET /v1/collect?engine=gemini&field=citations

Response fields

Key	Type	Notes
url	string	Absolute URL as the engine rendered it, redirects resolved.
domain	string	Registrable domain, normalised for grouping.
position	integer	Order within the citation set for that sample.
sample_frequency	float	Share of the n samples in which this URL appeared.
anchor_text	string \| null	Visible anchor or chip label, when the engine renders one.
first_seen	date	First run in which this URL appeared for this prompt.

What it costs

1 credit per prompt per sample. Citations are included in the base collection — no surcharge.

See credit pricing →

Gemini app citations FAQ

Why does Gemini sometimes cite nothing?: Because grounding did not fire for that prompt. The model answered from weights alone. We return that as a distinct state.
Does login change what Gemini cites?: It can. Personalisation is why we treat Gemini numbers as directional rather than identity-free, and why we run a small pool of accounts rather than one.

Add Gemini citations without pretending they are clean

We will tell you what Gemini coverage actually costs on your prompt set and what caveats belong in the client report.

Other Gemini app data

Brand mentions Sources Answer text Share of voice Sentiment Prompt volatility Position Locale variance

Across every engine

Compare how citations behaves on every engine we track.

Citations across all engines →