Free Content Citability Checker — AI-Friendly Score & Heat-Map | GrandRanker
Free Tool

Free Content Citability Checker

Paste any article and get a paragraph-level score showing how likely AI engines are to quote it. Heat-map highlights weak paragraphs. Recommendations for every paragraph below 80.

We extract the article body (article, main, content classes) and skip nav/footer/sidebar.

What is content citability?

AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews do not rank ten links — they synthesize one answer and cite a small handful of sources. Citability is how likely your content is to be selected as one of those citations.

The tool runs 7 signal checks per paragraph: factual density, self-containment, definitional clarity, active voice ratio, hedge word frequency, citation presence, and sentence length. Each paragraph gets a 0-100 score and color-coded position in a visual heat-map.

Use it after writing. Identify paragraphs scoring under 60. Apply the recommendations. Re-run. Most content moves from C to B grade with 15 minutes of edits.

7 signals analyzed
  • Factual density
    Specific numbers, dates, named entities per paragraph
  • Self-contained
    Each paragraph makes sense in isolation
  • Definitional clarity
    Clear definitions of terms
  • Active voice
    Direct subject-verb-object structure
  • Hedge words
    Penalty for "might", "perhaps", "possibly"
  • Citations
    Links and references to authoritative sources
  • Sentence length
    Penalty over 25 words per sentence average

Frequently asked

Everything to know about citability.

What is content citability?

+

Content citability is how likely an AI engine (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews) is to extract and quote a passage from your content when answering user queries. High citability means self-contained statements, factual density, clear definitions, and authoritative sourcing.

How is the score calculated?

+

Each paragraph is scored 0-100 across 7 signals: factual density, self-containment, definitional clarity, active voice ratio, hedge word frequency, citation presence, and vague opener count. Sentence length is penalized when over 25 words. The overall score is the average of all paragraph scores.

What is a self-contained statement?

+

A statement that makes sense without context from surrounding paragraphs. Sentences that start with "It", "This", "That", or "These" reference earlier content and are harder for AI engines to extract. Good citable content opens each paragraph with a complete idea.

Why are hedge words penalized?

+

AI engines prefer direct claims. Words like "might", "perhaps", "possibly", and "generally" reduce confidence in a statement, making it less likely to be selected as a citation. Strong content makes specific assertions backed by evidence.

What does the heat-map show?

+

Each paragraph is color-coded: emerald (excellent, 80+), light green (good, 60-79), yellow (fair, 40-59), red (poor, under 40). Click any paragraph to see specific recommendations for improvement.

Does this work for all content types?

+

Best for informational and editorial content (blog posts, guides, articles, documentation). Works less well for product pages, ad copy, or creative writing where citability is not the primary goal. The tool requires at least 50 characters and detects paragraphs by blank lines.