What Actually Predicts Whether AI Cites Your Website (Data from 7 Site Audits)

De Domain authority does not predict whether AI will cite your website. I audited 7 websites for AI citability, and the results challenge nearly everything the SEO industry assumes about AI search visibility. Ahrefs (DA 92) was cited by AI only 5% of the time despite 100% visibility. A brand-new site with DA under 10 achieved a 15% citation rate. Sites with millions of daily visitors failed basic infrastructure checks. The factors that actually predicted citations had nothing to do with backlinks or traffic. Here is what the data showed.