Howseen Academy › Module 2: Measure your AI visibility
Howseen Academy · Lesson 2.3
Find the sources AI reads, and turn them into a target list
Every answer is built from a handful of pages. Find the ones that name your competitors and not you, and you know where to act.
By Raphaël Aubry, founder of Howseen AI · Updated By the end of this lesson, you can
- Find the pages AI cites for each of your buyer questions
- Sort sources into the four kinds you can act on
- Pick the five sources to work on first
Why sources
Why do sources matter more than rankings?
Because the answer is written from them. If the pages an AI reads list three competitors and not you, the answer will list three competitors and not you.
Google describes its AI features as showing a wider and more diverse set of links than a classic search (Google Search Central, AI features and your website). In the Pew study, 88% of Google AI summaries cited three or more sources (Pew Research Center, July 2025). An answer is a summary of several pages, so you need to know which ones.
Across our data, engines cited 41,711 links from 5,724 distinct domains (Howseen study). Your market has its own short list inside that crowd, and it is usually much shorter than you think.
Each answer also draws on several searches, not one, which is why the same domain can show up across many of your questions:
“Under the hood, AI Mode uses our query fan-out technique, breaking down your question into subtopics and issuing a multitude of queries simultaneously on your behalf.”
Four kinds
What kinds of sources does AI cite?
Most cited sources fall into four kinds: your own pages, lists and reviews, communities and video, and reference or press. Each kind has its own way in.
| Kind | Examples | How you get in |
|---|---|---|
| Your own pages | Product pages, guides, comparisons on your site | Publish and refresh pages that answer the question |
| Lists and reviews | "Best tools for X" articles, review and directory sites | Get listed, complete your profile, collect recent reviews |
| Communities and video | Forum threads, Reddit, YouTube | Contribute useful answers, publish a short video |
| Reference and press | Encyclopedias, media, industry reports | Earn coverage with facts and data, keep facts consistent |
Step by step
How do you turn sources into a target list?
Collect the sources for your questions, keep the ones that name a competitor and not you, then rank them by how often they are cited and how easy they are to change.
- Collect the cited sources for each tracked question (in Howseen: the Sources page, or open one question in Prompts).
- Keep the sources cited on questions where a competitor is named and you are not. These are your gaps.
- Count how many of your questions each domain is cited on. A domain cited on ten questions beats one cited once.
- Mark each source by kind: own page, list or review, community or video, reference or press.
- Mark how easy it is to act: you control it, you can ask to be added, you can contribute, or you cannot influence it.
- Pick five sources that are cited often and that you can act on. Those are your first actions.
Tip. The free citation tracker shows which domains an AI engine cites for a keyword, before you set anything up.
In Howseen
Where do you see your sources in Howseen?
On the Sources page, in each question of the Prompts page, and inside every Action Plan item. All three read the same answers.
- Open Sources in the left menu. The chart Domain citations by AI model shows which domains each engine cites most.
- Scroll to Top Cited Domains, then to Top Ranked URLs, Top YouTube Videos and Top Reddit Posts to see the exact pages.
- Click Export CSV to work on the list in a spreadsheet.
- For one question, open Prompts and click the question: each answer shows its Sources and the Fan-out queries the engine ran.
The Action Plan turns the most useful sources into actions with steps, and competitors and sources explains the feature in detail.
Questions, answered
What is the difference between a source and a mention?+
A source is a page the AI read and linked. A mention is your brand named in the answer text. Sources explain why a brand is or is not mentioned.
Should I try to get on every cited site?+
No. Start with the five sources cited on the most questions where a competitor is named and you are not, and that you can actually influence.
Why do different engines cite different sources?+
They run their own searches and use their own models. In our data, Google AI Overviews cited YouTube in 45.0% of answers and ChatGPT in none, so each engine needs its own look.
Can I pay a site to be cited by AI?+
You cannot pay an AI engine to cite you. Some sites sell sponsored placements, which may or may not be read by AI. Earned listings, reviews and useful contributions are the safer path.
How often do sources change?+
Often, because answers are generated fresh each time. Look at sources that come back across several runs rather than a single answer.
See who AI recommends instead of you
Howseen runs your buyer questions on the AI engines every few days, shows who gets named instead of you, and writes the pages that close the gap.
3-day free trial, cancel in 1 click.
