Source gap
A source gap is when an AI answer names a brand but cites someone else’s domain — a review site, competitor, or directory — as the source. The reader hears the brand’s name and clicks through to another site to learn more.
In the quadrant, a source gap is mentioned = yes, cited = no (your domain is absent while another’s is present). The other domain owns the click, the context, and the next brand it recommends.
The fixed move is to reclaim the source: identify the exact URL the answer cited in your place and out-publish it — a fresher first-party stat, a better comparison page, docs that answer the question directly. Because the stored answer names the winning domain, this is a specific competitive target, not guesswork.
Related terms
Start with the free audit
Send us one brand. We’ll run it through the engines and send back the answers, citations, and sources — so the first report your client sees is already backed by evidence.
Free audit: ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, run by hand. Paid work covers all six engines.