Retrieval & ranking
Grounding Source
The specific document an AI cites as evidence for a claim in its answer.
A grounding source is the specific document an engine cites as the evidence behind a claim in its answer. When a grounded answer says something and links a page, that page is the grounding source for that statement. It is the most valuable kind of citation because it ties your page directly to a factual claim the buyer is reading.
Becoming the grounding source for a claim means owning the clearest, most authoritative statement of that fact. If your page has the definitive number, definition or comparison, written so it can be lifted and attributed, the engine will tend to reach for you over a vaguer alternative.
Tracking which pages act as grounding sources for your key claims — yours or a competitor's — shows exactly where to strengthen content to win the attribution.
Related terms
Grounding
Constraining an AI's answer to retrieved source documents instead of model memory.
Citation (AI)
When an AI answer attributes or links a specific page as its source.
LLM SERP
The set of sources an AI answer cites — the generative stand-in for a results page.
Quotable Sentence
A self-contained statement an AI can lift verbatim into an answer and attribute.
Fact Density
How many specific, sourced facts a passage packs per sentence.
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