Citation Surface & Source Share

Citation surface. The citation surface records which actors an answer attributes its claims to. Being cited as a source is usually a stronger observed signal than being mentioned, because a cited source is presented as support for the answer rather than only as an item in a list.

Source share. Source share reads how citations are distributed: whether one actor anchors most of an answer's sourcing, or whether sourcing is spread across many. A concentrated source share can indicate that a surface treats an actor as a reference. A thin or intermittent share can indicate that an actor is present but not consistently relied upon.

Opening control. Within an AI Overview, the opening is the actor or source identified as opening the answer under the applicable capture rule. Opening control describes that observed role. It is read separately from organic rank, citation count and source-panel order; the first cited source is not automatically the opening actor or source.

Mention, citation, opening and recommendation. A mention names an actor in the visible answer. A citation explicitly attributes support to a source, usually through a cited URL. An opening identifies the actor or source the answer opens with under the applicable capture rule. A recommendation requires explicit language or context presenting an actor as a choice to consider. These roles can overlap, but none implies the others. A citation to a brand-owned URL and a citation to a third-party page discussing that brand are different source relationships. These observations describe the visible answer; they do not establish what was crawled, indexed or retrieved internally, or how the model reasoned.

Why citation behavior is read on its own. Citation, source share, and opening control describe how an answer is built, not only what order it lists. Reading them alongside rank is what separates visibility from authority.