# How to Get Cited on Chinese AI — DeepSeek, Qwen, Doubao

> Four-tier authority ladder Chinese AI engines actually read. Foundation → Endorsement → Community → Amplification.

Published: 2026-05-09
Site: https://www.eastbound.ai/how-to-get-cited-on-chinese-ai/

## Why third-party citation is the central work

Published research: 6.5× more effective than self-citation. Eastbound 540-call panel (May 2026) — Mainland-CN third-party share of mentions: DeepSeek 72.3%, Qwen 85.0%, Doubao 88.6%. On-site work is necessary baseline; off-site substrate is what gets brands into answers.

**Tier order matters.** Foundation → Endorsement → Community → Amplification. Tier 3 community work without Tier 1 = wasted (treated as low-quality signal).

## Tier 1 — Foundation: your own canonical surface

- Granular 5-bucket robots.txt
- /llms.txt + /llms-full.txt
- Sitemap (GSC + Bing Webmaster Tools — Bing AI Performance panel = only free tool that counts AI citations)
- Markdown alternates on top-10 pages
- IndexNow on publish
- 1,000–3,000-word reference pages per product/category/methodology question

## Tier 2 — Endorsement: Mainland CN tier-1 outlets

| Outlet | Type |
|---|---|
| 36氪 (36Kr) | Tech / startup business |
| 虎嗅 (Huxiu) | Tech / business commentary |
| 钛媒体 (TMTPost) | Tech / fintech |
| 第一财经 (Yicai) | Mainstream business |
| 财新 (Caixin) | Investigative business / policy |
| Vertical pubs | Vogue Business CN, WWD China, 极客公园, etc. |

Conventional PR work — but AI-citation downstream effect materially higher than human-readership effect.

## Tier 3 — Community: where the 6.5× lives

- **知乎 (Zhihu)** — long-form Q&A. Surfaced 97% in our handbag panel. Build named-expert presence; substantive answers; months of accumulation.
- **小红书 (Xiaohongshu / RED)** — lifestyle, B2C, beauty, FMCG. Strong on Doubao + DeepSeek; weak for B2B.
- **SMZDM (什么值得买)** — commerce/comparison. Dominant for everyday-luxury; collapses at ultra-luxury (DeepSeek SMZDM weight: 100% aspirational → 33% ultra-luxury). For Hermès/Chanel tier substitute: tpfPurseForum, Vogue Business CN, auction-house archives.
- **V2EX, 百度贴吧** — secondary.

## Tier 3.5 — Encyclopedia: highest single-page leverage

5-niche probe (n=125, DeepSeek): off-site encyclopedic presence (Wikipedia EN/ZH or Wikidata) was strongest predictor of mention rate. Descriptive correlation, not causal lift; not generalised beyond DeepSeek.

- **百度百科 (Baidu Baike)** — Mainland encyclopedia. Requires Tier-2 press coverage as prerequisite (notability via verifiable Mainland sources).
- **Wikipedia (EN + ZH) + Wikidata** — highest-trust short of academic. Surfaced 21% of DeepSeek responses in luxury-handbag panel. Wikidata is structurally more accessible.

## Tier 4 — Amplification

WeChat 公众号 (Yuanbao-indexed), Bilibili (transcripts surface in DeepSeek + Doubao), Douyin (lower per-citation weight, useful for awareness), 微博 (secondary, useful for trend participation).

## Technical + Academic (where applicable)

- Technical: GitHub, CSDN, 掘金 (Juejin) — high weight on DeepSeek for dev-tools.
- Academic: CNKI, 万方, arXiv — Qwen especially weights institutional sources.

## The mesh that compounds

Every Tier-2/3/4 piece links to a Tier-1 anchor; every Tier-1 anchor references 1–2 Tier-2/3 surfaces. This is what compounds.

**Bilingual sampling rule:** zh-CN content on zh-CN platforms; EN on EN. Never substitute. Cross-language sampling has documented suppression effects.

## Read next

- [DeepSeek SEO playbook](https://www.eastbound.ai/deepseek-seo/)
- [Qwen optimization](https://www.eastbound.ai/qwen-optimization/)
- [Doubao optimization](https://www.eastbound.ai/doubao-optimization/)
- [Why isn't my brand on DeepSeek](https://www.eastbound.ai/why-isnt-my-brand-on-deepseek/)
- [Insight: Zhihu](https://www.eastbound.ai/insights/zhihu-ai-visibility/) · [Xiaohongshu](https://www.eastbound.ai/insights/xiaohongshu-ai-visibility/) · [SMZDM](https://www.eastbound.ai/insights/smzdm-ai-visibility/) · [Wikipedia](https://www.eastbound.ai/insights/wikipedia-ai-visibility/)