Source
Whether a company's own site stands up as the record of what is true about it, and whether an engine can reach, read, and quote it.
What it tells a buyer or a marketer
Engines check what they say against what they can read. Source measures whether a company's own site answers the questions asked about it, holds up when checked, and can be reached, read, and quoted by an engine.
It is the factor a company controls most directly, because the evidence is its own content. For a buyer, a strong Source means the engine's answer about the company can be checked against the company's own words.
What a low and a high reading mean
The CRISP™ methodology states what a reading on either side of 50 means for each factor, in the words a report prints. For Source, below 50: "Your own content contradicts what buyers are told, is silent where it should settle the matter, or an engine cannot reach, attribute, or quote it at all." At or above 50: "Your own content answers the questions asked about you, holds up when checked, and an engine can retrieve, attribute, and quote it cleanly."
How it appears on the AI Authority Index™
Every company on the Leaderboard carries Source, read from a site crawl. A company whose crawl reached nothing it could read carries Source at the floor, and its row says so. A market publishes only when every company on its Leaderboard carries Source.
What moves it
Source rises as a site becomes easier to reach and read, and as its content settles the questions buyers ask: clear pages on what the company offers, facts that match what independent sources say, and nothing that blocks an engine from reading them. The free AI Authority Check™ reads the site live, so a fix to the site shows in the next Check without waiting for a new wave.
Related terms
Source is read from a site crawl, and a crawl that reaches nothing readable leaves Source at the floor. It works with Influence: Source is what the company says about itself, and Influence is what others say and the engines cite. Consistency between the two supports Consensus.
See also
AI Authority & Visibility, the service
Questions
What does Source measure?
It measures whether a company's own site stands up as the record of what is true about it, and whether an engine can reach, read, and quote it.
What does Source at the floor mean?
It means the site crawl reached nothing it could read. The company's row on the Index says so.
How can a company check its own Source?
The free AI Authority Check reads the company's site live and scores Source from what it reached.