Key takeaways
- Most cited pages fall into a small number of types, from your own site to news, community posts, marketplaces, directories, video and reference sites.
- The mix depends on the question and the engine. A how-to question and a which-is-best question about the same product can draw on completely different sources.
- An audit is simple: run your real questions, record every cited page, classify it by type and owner, and check whether it mentions you correctly.
- Invest where the engines already look for your questions, starting with the sources you control and the types where you are missing entirely.
Answers are built from pages
When an assistant searches the web before answering, it reads a set of pages and writes a summary of what they say. Many engines show some of those pages as citations. Those citations are the most direct view you have into why the answer came out the way it did.
A brand that only looks at whether it was mentioned sees the result. A brand that looks at the citations sees the inputs, and inputs are what can be changed.
The main types of cited sources
| Source type | Examples | Questions it tends to answer | Your control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your own site | Product pages, pricing, help centre, blog | Specifications, prices, policies, how-to | Full |
| News and trade press | Newspapers, industry magazines, press releases | Launches, company facts, market context | Partial, through PR |
| Reviews and community | Naver Blog, Naver Cafe, forums, Q&A sites | Real experience, pros and cons, which is better | Low, through seeding and service |
| Marketplaces | Coupang, Naver Smart Store, 11st | Price, availability, ratings | Partial, through listings |
| Directories and comparison sites | Software review sites, price comparison, business directories | Top lists, alternatives, ratings | Partial, through profiles |
| Video | YouTube reviews and tutorials | How it looks, how to use it | Partial, own channel plus creators |
| Reference sites | Wikipedia, Namuwiki, public databases | What a company is, history, definitions | Low, editorial rules apply |
In Korea, Naver Blog and Naver Cafe deserve particular attention. They hold a large share of first-hand reviews written in Korean, and engines that search the Korean web reach them often for experience and comparison questions.
Why the mix is different for every brand
- The question decides the source. Engines look for pages that answer in the form the user asked. A price question pulls in listings, a which-is-best question pulls in round-ups and reviews, a how-to question pulls in help pages and videos.
- Each engine has its own search stack. Engines rely on different indexes and partners, so the same question can produce different citations on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Naver AI Briefing.
- Supply shapes the result. Engines can only cite what exists. In regulated categories, detailed explanations often live in news and expert content rather than on brand sites; in software, brands often publish the most complete documentation themselves.
- Freshness matters. When several pages cover the same point, newer and clearly dated pages often have an edge.
That is why industry averages are a poor guide. The only citation mix that matters is the one for the questions your own buyers ask.
How to audit your citations
- List the questions. Take the questions buyers ask at each stage: category, comparison, price, how-to and is-it-worth-it.
- Run them on the engines that matter. Use clean sessions and note the date, engine and language.
- Record every cited page. Keep the full address, not only the domain, because one marketplace may host your listing and a competitor listing side by side.
- Classify each page. Mark its source type, who runs it and whether it mentions you, a competitor or neither.
- Check accuracy. Where you are mentioned, note whether the price, features and terms are current.
- Repeat on a schedule. Citations shift as pages are published and engines update, so compare audits over time rather than relying on one snapshot.
A simple spreadsheet is enough to start. The columns below make the later analysis easy.
| Column | What to record |
|---|---|
| Question and engine | The exact wording, engine, date and language |
| Cited address | Full address of each cited page |
| Source type | One of the types in the table above |
| Owner | You, a competitor, a partner or an independent third party |
| Brands mentioned | Which brands the page names |
| Accuracy note | Outdated or wrong claims about you |
Choosing where to invest
- Fix your own pages first. If your site is cited but says too little, make the facts specific, current and easy to quote.
- Fill the missing types. If engines answer your comparison questions from reviews and you have none, that gap matters more than another blog post on your own site.
- Prioritise sources cited across many questions. A page or site that appears again and again is worth a correction request, a partnership or a better listing.
- Keep marketplace and directory listings current. They are often cited for price and availability, and they are easier to update than third-party articles.
- Earn community content honestly. Good service, clear product information and genuine review programmes work better over time than paid posts that read as advertising.
How flowgen supports source work
GEO Insight records the pages engines cite for each tracked question and groups them by type and owner, so the audit above runs on its own. Content Agent drafts the pages that fill the gaps, Channel Agent distributes them to the channels engines already read, and Brand Intelligence keeps the facts consistent across all of them.