Source authority
Source authority explained
It is not domain rating, though the two correlate. A niche Indian trade publication can outweigh a large generic site on a category question, because the retrieval step is topical. Community sources punch above their weight for product opinions, which is why Reddit and Quora threads keep appearing in answers about what to buy.
The implication for PR is uncomfortable but clear: a placement that no engine retrieves is a placement that does nothing for AI visibility, however good the logo looks in a deck. Choose targets by whether they already appear in your category's answers.
Measure it directly. Your citation gap analysis tells you which sources the engines actually pull from in your category. That list is your media plan.
One definition is worth more than ten opinions
Every term here links to the service that owns the work and the tool that measures it.
Read next
Three things you can test this week
None of these need a tool or a vendor. They take an afternoon and they tell you whether source authority is actually your problem.
Our own measurement method, with its definitions and stated limits, is published on the method page.
The definition is the easy part
Knowing what a term means takes five minutes. Knowing whether it is your problem takes an afternoon, and knowing what to do about it takes a method.
Every glossary page here ends with three checks you can run yourself and the primary sources behind them, because a definition you cannot act on is trivia.
Primary sources
Primary documentation for the mechanics described on this page. All published by the organisations that operate the systems in question.
Twenty buying prompts, four engines, you against three named competitors. Report in one working day. No call needed.
Source authority: common questions
Do paid placements count?
They can be retrieved like anything else, but sponsored and syndicated content is often weighted down, and it rarely carries the independence signal that matters.
Are community sites really that influential?
In product recommendation answers, yes. Participate honestly rather than astroturfing, which gets detected and removed.
How do I pick PR targets for AI visibility?
Run your prompt set, list every source cited, and target those first.
See what the engines say about you
Twenty buying prompts, four engines, your brand against three named competitors. Report in one working day.
- 20 buying prompts, your category
- ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews
- You against three named competitors
- Report in one working day, yours to keep