See the sources AI cites when it answers your category.
Trace citations from buyer questions to specific domains and pages. See which brands appear alongside them, how source patterns differ across AI systems, and where your evidence ecosystem may need attention.
Every citation is inspectable in the captured response it appeared in. Herm reports what was cited alongside an answer, not that it caused the answer: read the methodology.
Only 6% of what AI reads about this category is yours. Editorial and review sites decide the rest.
What Herm counts as a source, and as a citation.
Source analysis is only useful if the unit of measurement is stated. Four definitions govern every number on this page.
Anything the system surfaces as a citation, link or named reference in the response Herm captured, recorded at both domain and page level.
A citation is a single observation: this question, this system, this run, this date. Counts on this page are sums of those observations, never estimates.
The domain tells you which publishers keep appearing in your category. The page tells you what was actually readable there, and whether it mentions you.
Herm records the sources a response makes visible. It does not claim to see a model’s internal retrieval, its ranking logic, or sources it used without disclosing them.
A citation only means something inside the answer it appeared in.
Every source on this page opens back into the captured response that cited it: the text as returned, the brands named, and the position each one held.
“best vitamin C serum for sensitive skin under £40”
Which domains decide your category.
Ranked by citations across the tracked question set. The rows worth reading first are the ones that keep appearing and never cite you.
| Domain | Type | Citations | Questions | AI systems | Brands cited alongside | 30d |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| skincarelab.co.uk never cites Velora | Editorial | 214 | 38 | 5 of 5 | Glowrise, Bloomlab | ▲ +12 |
| dermreview.com | Review | 168 | 31 | 4 of 5 | Bloomlab, Velora | ▲ +6 |
| glowrise.com never cites Velora | Competitor owned | 141 | 24 | 5 of 5 | Glowrise | ▲ +9 |
| r/SkincareAddiction never cites Velora | Community | 126 | 29 | 3 of 5 | Glowrise, Peau & Co | ▲ +18 |
| boots.com | Retailer | 98 | 22 | 4 of 5 | All six brands | 0 |
| which-beauty.co.uk never cites Velora | Editorial | 87 | 19 | 3 of 5 | Glowrise, Nuvéa | ▼ −4 |
| velora.com | Owned | 62 | 11 | 4 of 5 | Velora | ▲ +21 |
| youtube.com never cites Velora | Community | 54 | 17 | 2 of 5 | Glowrise, Bloomlab | ▲ +7 |
Open a domain and see what it actually says.
Each domain resolves to the pages that were cited, the questions they answered, the systems that cited them and the brands named alongside you.
| Page | Citations | Mentions you |
|---|---|---|
| /best-vitamin-c-sensitive-skin | 61 | No |
| /guides/rosacea-safe-actives | 44 | No |
| /reviews/best-budget-serums-2026 | 38 | Yes |
| /fragrance-free-skincare-uk | 31 | Yes |
Different questions are decided by different sources.
The domains that decide a discovery question are rarely the ones that decide a comparison. Reading citations per question is what makes the pattern actionable.
| Question | Topic | Leading source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| best vitamin C serum for sensitive skin under £40 | Vitamin C | skincarelab.co.uk | Named · 3rd |
| gentle vitamin C serum for rosacea | Rosacea | dermreview.com | Absent |
| is Velora Bright Boost C any good? | Brand | glowrise.com | Named · 1st |
| fragrance-free skincare brands UK | Fragrance-free | r/SkincareAddiction | Named · 1st |
| Velora vs Glowrise vitamin C | Comparison | boots.com | Named · 2nd |
| affordable dermatologist-tested serums | Price / value | which-beauty.co.uk | Absent |
See which sources carry your competitors and not you.
Where a competitor leads a topic, the same handful of domains usually sits behind the answers. The gap is visible as a list of domains, not as a feeling.
How much of what AI reads about you is yours.
Citations break down by source type: editorial, review, community, retailer, competitor owned and your own. The mix says who currently narrates your category.
| Source type | Share | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| Editorial | 34% | 627 |
| Review | 22% | 405 |
| Community | 19% | 350 |
| Retailer | 13% | 239 |
| Competitor owned | 6% | 111 |
| Owned | 6% | 110 |
Turn a source gap into a piece of work.
A domain that decides nine answers and never cites you is a specific, scoped task with a named owner, not a general content ambition.
Publish a sensitivity and patch-testing guide, then get the tolerance data in front of the two domains that decide this topic.
- Absent from 7 of 9 runs
- Competitors cited on 3 editorial pages
- No dedicated owned page
- Feed missing sensitivity attribute
Submit the 2025 tolerance study to skincarelab.co.uk and dermreview.com, both already cited on these answers.
- Two domains carry 9 of the answers
- Neither cites Velora
- Both cite Glowrise
A citation is evidence, not proof of causation.
Herm captures what AI systems make visible. That is enough to describe an evidence environment precisely, and not enough to explain a model’s reasoning. We would rather draw that line ourselves than let a dashboard imply otherwise.
- A source was cited in a captured response.
- Your brand appeared, and in which position.
- Which competitors appeared in the same answer.
- The specific claims the response contained.
- Whether the pattern repeats across runs, systems and dates.
- That the cited source caused the recommendation.
- That changing a source will change a result.
- That the model reasoned from that source in a specific hidden sequence.
- That the citations shown are everything the system read.
- That a movement in visibility was caused by a movement in sources.
Seven rules govern every citation number on this page.
The full method, meaning panel composition, prompt sets, run cadence, classification rules and known limitations, lives on the methodology page.
A source made visible in a captured answer: link, footnote or named reference.
Both are recorded; page-level data exists only where the system disclosed the URL.
Every question is asked repeatedly, so a single answer never sets a number.
The same five systems, at recorded model versions, every run.
Results are held per market. No personalisation, no logged-in history.
Source types are assigned by rule, and the rule is stated on the methodology page.
Counts are sums of observations. Nothing on this page is modelled.
Common questions
What counts as a citation?
One source, in one answer, on one system, on one run. A citation is a single observation, and every count on the page is a sum of those observations, never an estimate.
Does Herm see everything the model read?
No. Herm records the sources a response makes visible. It does not claim to see a model’s internal retrieval, its ranking logic, or sources it used without disclosing them.
If we get cited on a top domain, will our score go up?
Herm will not claim that. It reports the sources cited alongside answers and the patterns associated with visibility. It does not claim a cited source caused a recommendation, or that changing a source will change a result.
Which systems are these citations from?
The fixed five-system panel: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok, recorded per run with the date and market.
Do you record pages or just domains?
Both, where the system disclosed the URL. The domain tells you which publishers keep appearing in your category; the page tells you what was actually readable there, and whether it mentions you.
See what AI reads before it answers about you.
Start with one category and see which domains decide it, which of them cite you, and which never have.
Sample figures throughout.