Sources & citations
How Promptive identifies and categorizes the domains AI platforms cite when discussing your brand and category.
What are sources
When AI platforms answer a question, they often reference or explicitly link to sources — the web pages, forums, or articles that informed the answer. Promptive captures these citations from actual AI responses and aggregates them into the Sources section.
Sources tell you what the AI ecosystem trusts. If Reddit, G2, and three competitor blog posts are the top citations for your category's prompts, that's a map of where your content strategy needs to go.
Citation tracking is not available on Trial. Upgrade to Starter ($79/mo) to access the Sources section.
Domain types
Promptive categorizes every cited domain into one of these types:
| Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| UGC | Reddit, Quora, forum threads, community discussions |
| Editorial | Tech publications, review sites, Substack newsletters |
| Corporate | Company websites, product pages, official documentation |
| Competitor | Domains belonging to your tracked competitors |
| Institutional | University research, government sources, standards bodies |
| Reference | Wikipedia, dictionaries, established reference databases |
| You | Pages on your own domain that the AI cited |
The Sources section shows a pie chart of category distribution and a ranked table of individual domains.
Sources table
The table lists the top cited domains for your tracked prompts. Columns: domain, category type, citation frequency (how often it appears in your responses), trend, and average citations per response. Filter by domain type using the tabs above the table.
Using this data
The strategic value of sources data:
- High UGC share? AI platforms are learning your category from community discussions. Contributing to these communities or earning mentions on them gives you AI visibility, not just traditional SEO
- Competitors cited often? The AI has learned your category partly through competitor content. Creating better, more citable content in those same contexts can shift this
- Your own domain rarely cited? Your pages aren't being used as sources. This is addressable through structured content, authoritative publishing, and earning links from domains that already rank here
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