Documentation
Improving visibility via external publications and mentions
How the command center turns the source-domain map into a plan for external placements: the main recommendation is the "outlet × topic" pair, and the content plan serves as a brief for the editorial team
Contents
1.External publications: where the brand should appear beyond its site
The External publications tab in the command center gathers recommendations for where the brand needs to appear outside its own site. For most commercial queries, AI cites external sources — editorial outlets, catalogs, communities, expert domains — more often than the brand sites themselves, so presence there directly determines whether the brand makes it into an answer.
- Recommendations are split by outlet type: editorial publications and media, communities (forums, Q&A, blogs), catalogs and aggregators, reviews and ratings, and authoritative domains. The type is shown as a badge right on the card — e.g. "Editorial publication"
- Recommendations aren't abstract: GEO Scout takes the domains AI already cites on your queries (from the Sources section) and suggests strengthening presence exactly where the model is already looking for confirmation. The card header shows the domain, type, and counts of queries, citations, and topics
- The card explains "What to do" and "Why it matters" (e.g. "models already lean on digitalkassa.ru, but the brand is barely represented there"). Below — "Affected queries" (which prompts the outlet influences and at what coverage) and "Citation examples" — the specific materials AI already cites
- Each type is its own work channel: editorial publications go to PR, catalogs to marketing, communities to a community manager, reviews to support. From an action you can "Generate a content plan", mark it "Done", snooze, or hide it
Don't treat external publications as an add-on to on-site work. For many niches this channel grows citations faster than on-site changes: AI already trusts these sources — you just need to land in the right material. Editorial publications are especially strong — one article on an outlet the model already cites quickly lifts the brand's share of mentions.
2.Content plan and article generation
From an external-publication card (or any content action), GEO Scout builds a content plan and, from it, a ready article in one click. The logic isn't "write some text" — it's to lean on what the AI engines already cite: the system analyzes the format of working content and assembles a plan around it.
- Format from cited content: GEO Scout looks at what content AI already cites on your queries and extracts the working format — which structure, facts, and questions make it into answers. The plan is built around what already works, not "the topic in general"
- A content plan for a specific angle: the plan has an angle (e.g. "Comparison") and a priority (High/…). Inside — "Target prompts" (which queries the content must answer), "Citable facts" (facts AI providers can quote), "FAQ questions", and "Recommended outlets" to amplify the topic after publishing
- One query can be covered by several plans from different angles — comparison, guide, case — to cover the different phrasings the AI engines search by
- From a plan, one click generates an article (usually 30–60 seconds) that already factors in what works: verified facts, a citation-friendly structure, and an FAQ. The finished piece has a table of contents with anchors, sections, "Article / Schemas" tabs, and export: "Copy article", "Download", "Copy schemas" (JSON-LD: NewsArticle, ItemList, etc.)
- Facts for the article come from the brand's knowledge base — keeping numbers and wording accurate and consistent rather than invented. What the knowledge base is and how to fill it — in the next point of this section
Don't order "an article about the topic in general". The content plan is built from what AI already cites, so an article from it is more likely to land in answers. Keep 1–2 angles per query (e.g. comparison + guide) — that covers more phrasings without spreading thin.
3.Knowledge base: verified facts for generation
The knowledge base (Settings → "Knowledge base") holds the sources that generated briefs and articles rely on: site pages, links, and uploaded files. Facts for the content are taken from here, not invented: you index trusted brand materials once, and every article then draws on them.
- Three source types: "Add link" (any page by URL), "Add site pages" (pick from the brand's sitemap), and "Upload files" (a deck, a guide, a price list). Everything important about the brand lives in one place
- Each source is indexed — split into fragments (chunks) the model later uses to find exact facts. The table shows the status ("Indexed"), the fragment count, and the update date. Indexing and re-indexing cost 1 credit per source
- Indexed sources are blended into brief and article generation as verified brand facts. These are the "Citable facts" from the content plan — numbers and wording come from your materials, not from the model's general knowledge
- Example: the brand site states "over 322,000 stores and services accept payments with YooKassa". Once indexed, that fact lands in the generated article verbatim and correctly — no risk of the model inventing a different number
- Re-index a source when the page's data changes (prices, stats, terms): fresh fragments replace the old ones, and new articles draw on up-to-date facts
- The fuller the knowledge base, the more accurate and convincing the content: the model doesn't hallucinate but assembles the material from confirmed facts about your brand — which directly raises the chance of being cited and the trust in the publication
Load the key facts into the knowledge base up front — numbers, pricing, advantages, differences from competitors. Then every generated article speaks about the brand with the same accuracy, and you won't have to fix facts by hand after each generation.
4.Marketing campaigns: tracking the impact of publications
Once the material is out — on an external outlet or your own site — add its URL to the Marketing campaigns section and track how the AI engines react: how many times it landed in answers, on which prompts, and what citation lift it produced. This is where the loop closes: recommendation → publication → measurable impact.
- The "+ Add URL" button accepts both external placements (an article on vc.ru, a catalog card, a community thread) and pages on your own site. A campaign groups placements within a single release, PR wave, or quarterly plan
- Three campaign KPI cards: "Citations" — how many times the URL landed in AI answers; "Citation rate" — what share of answers on the tracked prompts contains this URL; "Prompts" — in how many distinct queries AI used the page. An instant answer to "did the placement work"
- The "URL sources" tab — a table of tracked links by domain: citations, response share, and prompt count per URL. You see which material brings citations and which sits idle
- The "Prompts" tab shows in which queries AI cites the placement. If the material closes priority-prompt gaps, the loop is closed; if it lands on irrelevant ones, that's a signal to rework the content or topic
This is the metric that makes GEO measurable: recommendation → publication → URL in a campaign → citations in the next monitoring cycle. Mind the lag: it usually takes 2–3 weeks (depending on the outlet) before the material starts getting cited by the AI engines — they need time to index it and pull it into their sources. If it still picks up no citations by then, rework the material or try another outlet.