Co-citation means that two documents, pages or brands are cited together by a third source, without citing each other. The term comes from bibliometrics and is also used in SEO.
Origin and use in SEO
Henry Small introduced co-citation analysis in 1973, and according to reports Irina Marshakova developed it independently in the same year. The more often two documents are cited together, the closer their subject matter is assumed to be. Bibliographic coupling is the reverse view: two documents that cite the same sources.
SEO borrowed the term. The assumption is that search engines derive topical relationships from joint mentions, with or without a link. Google has not confirmed co-citation as a ranking or evaluation factor, so claims about it are assessments by agencies and tool vendors.
Example
Several trade articles compare three crawler vendors. The vendors do not link to each other, but all three appear in each article. According to the co-citation idea, this ties them together topically.
Frequently asked question
Is co-citation the same as a backlink? A backlink points directly at a target page. Co-citation describes two targets mentioned together by a third source.
Sources
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