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A source is any webpage an AI provider attaches to its response as a reference. Topify records every cited URL across your tracked prompts and rolls them up at both the domain and URL level, so you can see which sites AI reaches for and which specific pages it lands on.

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What is a source?

When AI assistants answer a question, they often cite the websites they drew information from. These cited websites are sources. For example, when answering “What is the best CRM?”, Perplexity might cite:
  • g2.com/categories/crm (a review platform)
  • hubspot.com/products/crm (a vendor page)
  • forbes.com/advisor/business/best-crm (an editorial article)
Each of these is a source. Topify.ai collects and analyzes all sources cited across your tracked prompts.

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Why sources matter

Source citations are a direct measure of content authority in AI search. If your website is frequently cited as a source:
  • AI providers consider your content trustworthy and informative
  • Your brand gets direct exposure through link attribution
  • Users following citations land on your website
Conversely, if competitor domains are cited frequently but yours isn’t, it signals a content gap that you can address.

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Domain vs URL tracking

Topify.ai tracks sources at two levels:
Aggregated view across all pages on a domain. Useful for understanding which websites AI providers trust most overall.Example: All citations to techcrunch.com/* are grouped together.

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Source categories and metrics

Each cited domain is classified into a category (Corporate, Editorial, Institutional, Reference, UGC, Other) and tracked with metrics like Used %, avg citations, and citation count. Understanding which categories dominate helps you decide where to focus content efforts — if editorial outlets dominate your space, earning media coverage there is a leverage point. For full category definitions and metric formulas, see Source metrics. For how to use the sources page in the dashboard, see Analyzing sources.

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FAQ

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Why do different AI providers cite different sources?

Each provider has its own training data, retrieval system, and citation preferences, so the same question can produce quite different source lists across them. Topify tracks source citations per provider so you can see where each AI engine draws from and optimize accordingly.

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How can I get my website cited more often by AI?

Focus on creating authoritative, well-structured content that AI providers can easily reference. Key strategies: add citations and statistics to your content, use clear headings that match common questions, keep technical documentation up to date, and build topical authority through comprehensive coverage of your domain.