METRICS
Cited Source Mix
IN ONE SENTENCE
Cited source mix is the distribution of domain types across the sources in a batch of answers — it tells you which kind of source the AI trusts on this question.
Cited source mix is the distribution of domain types across the sources in a batch of answers — it tells you which kind of source the AI trusts on this question.
OUR POSITION
Read the mix before choosing actions. If a question's citations come almost entirely from communities and review sites, more owned content will not enter the answer — the work belongs off-site.
How to compile it
Classify every citation by domain type: official docs, owned site, community, encyclopedia, video, trade media, B2B review site, news. Keep the classification fixed.
Compile it per platform. Preferences differ sharply, and a blended distribution hides that.
What has been measured publicly
Semrush (June 2025, 150,000+ citations across 5,000 keywords): Reddit 40.1%, Wikipedia 26.3%, YouTube 23.5%.
Reporting in early 2026 put YouTube ahead of Reddit as the leading social citation source, with sharp divergence between platforms — so any 'most-cited sources' list is time-sensitive and needs a date attached.
The Chinese ecosystem looks entirely different, split across ByteDance properties, WeChat public accounts, Zhihu, CSDN and Baijiahao. The English playbook does not transfer.
What to do with the finding
Industry estimates put roughly three quarters of citation weight on sources you do not own, so owned content alone hits a ceiling.
Off-site output is not under your control — communities remove marketing content, and named reviews depend on customers agreeing. Commit the input, not the output.
Data behind this page
40.1%
Reddit's share of citations in AI answers
Source：Semrush, 150,000+ citations across 5,000 keywords，2025-06
under 5%
Ceiling on any single domain's citation share on one platform
Source：Evertune, 200M prompts，2026
Sources
- [1]GEO: Generative Engine Optimization．Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024．2024
Updated 2026-08-10