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Every time an AI engine cites a URL in its answer, Prefer captures it, classifies the source, and rolls it up so you can see exactly where each engine goes for information. This page explains what a citation is, how sources are classified, and how to use the Sources view to find pages worth owning.

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What counts as a citation

A citation is any URL an AI engine links to as part of its answer for a tracked prompt. Prefer stores the citing engine, the prompt, the position in the answer, and the destination URL. Deduplication is per (run, prompt, engine, URL).

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How Prefer classifies sources

Each cited URL is tagged with a source type so you can filter by intent rather than raw domain:
  • Owned: your own domain and known subdomains.
  • Earned: press, podcasts, and third-party writeups.
  • Third-party: general reference sites and neutral publishers.
  • Competitor: a tracked rival’s domain.
  • Listicle: “best of” and comparison round-ups.
  • Review: G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, and category equivalents.
  • Forum: Reddit, Hacker News, Stack Overflow, and similar community threads.
  • Directory: category directories and marketplaces.
  • Community: Discord, Slack communities, and specialist forums.

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Where you read source data

  • Monitor > Overview > Top cited content: your owned URLs ranked by citation share.
  • Monitor > Competitors > Sources: which domains cite which brands, split per engine.
  • Prompt detail > Top Domains / Top Citations: per-prompt source lists with links out.

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Find pages you should own

1

Open Competitors > Sources

Filter to a single competitor.
2

Sort by citation share

The top rows are the sources that competitor “owns”: pages that engines cite for their brand and not for yours.
3

Send to Action Center

Use the row action to create an Action for outreach, guest content, or an owned page that can compete for the same slot.
Listicles and reviews often drive the highest share of citations in software categories. Prioritize inclusion or corrections in those sources before writing new owned content.

Competitors

Compare source ownership across every tracked rival.

Action Center

Turn source gaps into ranked outreach and content work.