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.
- "Top cited domains" opens with a breakdown by category: Competitors, Other, Media, Communities, Official, Directories, Reviews — 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, directories, homepages, how-tos and guides, articles, reviews, comparisons, documentation, news, case studies, FAQs — each with its share. It tells you which format to write in to get cited
- The domain table: domain with its category tag, number of unique URLs, citations, trend, citation share, icons of the providers linking to it, and a "Mentions" column — which brands surface alongside that source
- The "Mentions" column carries a warning: it's beta. Engines take brand information from one source and pad the block around the mention with data from another, so attribution sometimes produces spurious links. Citations and shares are exact — it's the "source → brand" link that needs caution
- The "Cited / All sources" switch changes the scope: only domains that actually landed in an answer, or the whole pool the engines looked through. The period, provider, and prompt filters at the top narrow the slice
- The arrow to the left of a domain expands its unique URLs — the exact pages being cited. That's a ready brief: which materials to outdo with your own content and which venues to enter
Don't try to be everywhere. Take the top of the list, filter to media and communities — those are the venues you can actually influence and that AI already cites on your queries. Competitor domains from the same list 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 "Gained" and "Dropped" by the strength of their citation change versus the previous period. Every row carries the domain, page type, 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 outlet card: is it worth going there
Clicking a domain opens the outlet 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 outlet cited on your queries while only competitors get mentioned inside it.
- The header shows the domain with an "Outlet" badge, a "Visit site" link, and four KPIs: citation share, number of prompts, the providers citing it, and "Your brand cited" — how many times the brand was cited from this source specifically
- "Citation dynamics" is a daily chart by provider. You can see which engines rely on the outlet constantly and which picked it up recently; the tooltip breaks the day down per provider
- "Domain pages" lists every cited page of the outlet with a type filter: one format usually dominates (listicles and rankings, for instance). Each page shows its providers, the brands mentioned, and its citation count
- "Winners & Losers" repeats at the domain level: which pages of the outlet gained or lost citations over the period. A fresh listicle starting from zero is usually exactly the one worth getting into
- "Cited from this source" lists the brands the engines cite from this outlet, with a count for each. Your brand carries a badge: if it's at the bottom or absent, the outlet is working for your competitors
- "Prompts citing this source" shows the specific queries the outlet 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 outlet lands in an answer and what exactly gets pulled from it
Compare "Your brand cited" against the competitors' counts in "Cited from this source". A high citation share for the outlet with a zero for your brand is the strongest argument to go there with a publication: the engines already trust the source, you're simply not in it.
4.The URL card: one page broken down
From the outlet card you can drill into a specific page. This is the narrowest level: one article or listicle and everything it delivers — which brands get cited from it, on which queries, and by which engines.
- The header shows the page title, a link to it, and the same KPIs as the outlet but for a single URL: citation share, prompts, providers, and how many times your brand was cited from this page
- "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
- "Cited from this source" shows which brands the engines pull out of this exact page. On a ranking listicle that's effectively the balance of power inside the material: who stands out in it
- "Prompts citing this source" shows which queries the page works for. Often it's one or two, which makes clear what phrasing the material lands in answers for at all
- It also reveals the ceiling: if a strong page only earns citations on a single prompt, a placement there closes a narrow slice — a perfectly good reason to look for material with broader coverage
Before negotiating a placement, open the target page at this level: if your brand is already in it but competitors are the ones being cited from it, the problem isn't the outlet — it's how you're presented inside the material. 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.