Documentation
Working with sources
The map of domains and pages AI leans on in answers to your queries: who gets cited, what's rising and falling, and which brand pages AI sees but never cites
Contents
1.The source map: where the engines get their facts
The "Sources" section is the full map of domains AI links to in answers to your prompts. It answers the question "where do the engines take their facts from, and where does the brand need to be": until you're inside those sources, landing in an answer is a matter of luck. The "Where to publish" button in the header hands the choice to the AI agent: it picks the outlets AI already cites in your niche where your brand isn't present yet.
- "Top cited domains" opens with a breakdown by category: Media, Directories, Competitors, Communities, Official, Other — each with its citation count and share. That's the structure of your niche on one screen: which type of venue the engines are willing to cite at all
- The priority for work is Communities (forums, Q&A, blogs, social, video) and Media (news, business and tech press). You can't influence competitor sites, but these you can enter with a publication, a guest piece, or a mention. "Official" are your own domains — their share shows how much AI relies on you directly
- The "Page type" filter shows which formats make it into answers: listicles and rankings, product pages, homepages, articles, how-tos and guides, reviews, directories, news, comparisons, discussions, documentation, FAQs, research, case studies — each with its citation count and share. It tells you which format to write in to get cited
- The domain table: domain with its category tag and number of unique URLs, citations, trend versus the previous period, citation share, the providers linking to it, a "Brand" column, and "Priority"
- "Brand" isn't a guess from the answer text but a check of the page itself: the system opens it and looks for the brand name. "Mentioned" — found (the tooltip shows the name variant and the snippet), "Not mentioned" — the page was read and the brand isn't on it, "Not checked" — the page hasn't been checked yet or didn't open. "Check again" reruns the check
- "Priority" (0–100) — how urgently you need to get into the source or publish an alternative piece. It's computed from verified pages and grows when the source is cited on many of your prompts and competitors are on it while you aren't. Pages that could not be read ("Unreadable") are estimated from AI answers — which companies they tie to the page — and marked "estimate". Under a domain's score you see how many pages lack you; a page gets a "verified gap" label; the tooltip breaks the score down: how many prompts cite the source, how many competitors are on the page, citations, and why the number came out as it did. Priority isn't computed for your own sites or competitor sites
- The switches above the table: "Cited only / All sources" — only domains that actually landed in an answer, or the whole pool the engines looked through; "Gap analysis" — only verified pages where your brand is absent while competitors AI named are present, sorted by priority; "Brand mentioned" — only sources from answers where AI named the brand, i.e. what the engines rely on when they talk about you. The period and "Filters" in the top bar narrow the slice
- The arrow to the left of a domain expands its individual URLs — with page type, brand check, and priority; the arrow on a page shows "Prompts this page feeds" with the prompt group and citation count. The ✦ icon on a page row is "Generate ideas": the system breaks down the article and collects ideas for pieces on the same topic in the Content Studio
Don't try to be everywhere. Turn on "Gap analysis": the top rows become verified pages AI cites on many of your prompts where competitors already are and you aren't — that's your work queue. Competitor domains are useful differently: their pages show the format of material the engines are willing to cite in your niche.
2.URL dynamics: what's rising and what's dropping out of answers
Domains answer the "where"; individual pages answer the "what exactly" the engines cite. The two blocks below show the life of specific URLs over time: which pages hold their citations, which just appeared, and which fell out of the answers.
- "Individual URL citations" is a daily chart for the top pages from AI answers. The "Show top" switch (5 / 10 / 15 / 20) controls how many lines are drawn, and the "Citation share / URL" toggle flips between domain shares and absolute page citations
- The point tooltip lists that day's URLs ranked, with citation counts and the outlet's icon. A crown marks the leaders: the pages the engines cite most often
- "Winners & Losers" splits pages into "Winners" and "Losers" by the strength of their citation change versus the previous period. Every row carries the domain, page type, the brand-on-page check ("Mentioned", "Not mentioned", "Unreadable" or "Checking…", plus "Check again"), providers, and a delta like "+3 (1 → 4)"
- A "new" badge marks URLs that weren't in the answers before, "dropped" marks the ones that disappeared. That's an early signal: a competitor's fresh listicle the engines just picked up, or your own material that stopped landing in answers
- The comparison period is spelled out in the block header, so it's unambiguous which two intervals the gains and losses are measured between
Check "Winners & Losers" weekly — it's the fastest way to spot a shift before it shows up in the headline metrics. Someone else's fresh listicle appearing under "Gained" usually means a new ranking shipped in your niche and it's worth getting into; your own URL under "Dropped" is a reason to look at what changed on the page or at competitors.
3.The platform card: is it worth going there
Clicking a domain opens the platform card — one source broken down in full. It settles a practical question: will a placement there give visibility to your brand specifically, or is the platform cited on your queries while only competitors are on its pages.
- The header shows the domain with a "Platform" badge, an "Open site" link, and four KPIs: citation share, number of prompts, the providers citing it, and "Priority" — the tooltip explains the number, e.g. "23 verified pages without you but with competitors; they feed 14 of 65 prompts". The "Review this source" button hands the breakdown to the AI agent: what AI takes from the domain, which competitors are there, and how to get in
- "Who is on this site's pages" — only brands found in the page text itself: your brand with a "You" badge and the share of pages it's on ("on 13 of 49 pages"), and competitors — with mention counts, pages, and the fragments that name them; "N more fragments" expands the rest. If you're absent from the checked pages while competitors are present, the block says so plainly
- "Citation dynamics" is a daily chart by provider. You can see which engines rely on the platform constantly and which picked it up recently; the tooltip breaks the day down per provider
- "Domain pages" lists every cited page of the platform with a type filter: each shows its providers, the brand check ("Mentioned" with the matched snippet in the tooltip, "Not mentioned", "Unreadable"), priority, and citation count. Sorting by priority brings up the pages where competitors are and you aren't
- "Winners & Losers" repeats at the domain level: which pages of the platform gained or lost citations over the period, with the same brand check. A fresh listicle starting from zero is usually exactly the one worth getting into
- "Prompts citing this source" shows the specific queries the platform surfaces on, with providers and citation counts. Clicking a prompt opens its card
- Below sits "Responses citing this source": the AI answer texts themselves. A quick way to check in what context the platform lands in an answer and what exactly gets pulled from it
Read the priority together with "Who is on this site's pages". A high priority while your brand is on almost none of the pages and competitors are is the strongest argument to go there with a publication: the engines already trust the source, you're simply not in it. If the brand is already on most pages, the platform has given what it can — look for the next one.
4.The URL card: one page broken down
From the domain table or the platform card you can drill into a specific page. This is the narrowest level: one article or listicle and everything it delivers — whether your brand and competitors are on it, on which queries, and which engines cite it.
- The header shows the page title, a link to it, the brand check result ("Mentioned", "Not mentioned" or "Unreadable", plus "Check again"), and the same KPIs as the platform but for a single URL: citation share, prompts, providers, and priority
- "Brand mention on the page" — the snippets where your brand was found, highlighted and labelled with the part of the page it sits in: text, title, description, markup, link, or navigation. A mention in navigation alone is nothing like a paragraph about the brand in the body of the article
- "Who is on this page" — brands found in the page text, with fragments: on a ranking listicle that's effectively the balance of power inside the material. If you're absent while competitors are present, the block says it plainly: AI reads this page — worth getting onto it
- "Citation dynamics" shows the page's life over time by provider: one engine may keep it in answers for weeks while another reaches for it only occasionally. "Prompts citing this source" shows which queries the page works for; if there's just one, a placement there closes a narrow slice
- The "Generate ideas" button breaks down the article and collects ideas for pieces on the same topic in the Content Studio: for media — in the format the outlet actually publishes, for a competitor's site — for your own site, fuller and more precise
Before negotiating a placement, open the target page at this level. If your brand is already on it but AI still prefers competitors, the problem isn't the outlet — it's how you're presented inside the material: look at the snippets in "Brand mention on the page" — sometimes updating the mention beats shipping a new publication.
5.Pages for optimization: found, but not cited
The section's second tab is "Pages for optimization". It collects pages of your own site that the AI models found but didn't cite in their answers: the interest is there, the link isn't. It's the cheapest growth point — no new venue to win over, just work on what already enters the engines' field of view.
- The header states how many appearances happened across how many pages, with two counters next to it: how many pages went uncited and how many are already cited. The second is your base, the first is the work queue
- The table shows the page with its title, a "Found" column (how many times the engines saw it without linking), and the providers that found it. Sorting by "Found" puts the biggest missed potential on top
- Under each row sits "N of M closed" — progress across that page's prompts: how many queries optimization has already addressed and how many are still open
- Expanding a row reveals "Prompts where the page wasn't cited" — the specific queries the page surfaced on without making the answer. Closed ones are struck through, so what's already been done is visible
- The "Optimize" button opens the content studio with that page and immediately starts generating edits, an FAQ, and schema. If the page has been optimized before, the button becomes "Open" — you land in the existing result instead of paying for a rerun
- The optimization process itself — the edits, priorities, and moving blocks onto the page — is covered in the "Own domain visibility" guide
Start from the top rows by "Found": a page the engines saw ten times and never cited pays off more than a perfect new publication. It already has the appearances — all it lacks is wording the model can quote.