When I’m working with my own writing team or in-house writers at clients, something that has always been tricky are citation links and sources. This post is not about the proper way from school, legal requirements, etc… It is how to give a citation link or source link for your own website SEO wise. This includes E-E-A-T, SEO neighborhoods, keeping a clean link, providing a good user experience, and making sure machine learning can understand why it is trustworthy.
Proper sourcing and citations are important for most types of website, and they are vital if you want to do well in Google’s medic and YMYL algorithms. These algorithms require perfection, and sourcing is part of that.
The main criteria we use or avoid is:
- Third party metrics like DA, AS, toxicity, etc….
- The author of the content
- External links from the website
- If the website allows guest posts or contributors
- When it is a blog from a company or personal account
- The actual content of the page we’re sourcing
There are things not included in the list above that we check for are LLM created websites and content websites that use spammy tactics like programmatic SEO, but that is irrelevant for this topic because nobody should source those types of sites, so I don’t feel it is worth mentioning.
Third Party Metrics
These do not matter and they are not used by Google in particular. Google has their own site value scoring and we give links to sites with incredibly low DA/AS/etc… regularly. Citing a source is about the credibility of the website or webpage in question and that it is sharing accurate, factual, and relevant information.
It does not matter if that content lives on a site with a high score or a low score from a third party. Your job should be building the readers’ trust and only linking to and sourcing information you would personally trust from a website you would personally trust.
The Author of the Content or Website
The person, people, or group that wrote the content (not fact checked it) is one of the most important things I look for. “Fact checked” and “Reviewed by” is now overused and abused to the point where it is likely no longer believable. I have a feeling the major search engines will begin ignoring these because of how much it is being abused as a “trust builder” for E-E-A-T.
It doesn’t matter to me if there is an author box or a “reviewed” and “fact checked” by if the person who wrote the content is credible. I check their credibility by:
- Seeing if they have a knowledge panel and it is related to the content I want to source
- The degrees they have that would qualify them to create the content
- If they’re actively working in the field for the content they produce
- Publishing new research papers, content, and studies about the topics I want to source or cite
- Checking if these research papers get cited by industry publications or journals
- Looking at conferences they speak at and who is actively interviewing them on channels trusted by the industry
- Finding their columns if they write for publications and continue to actively create topically relevant content
If the content and website is owned by a person that has at least some of the above, it doesn’t matter if the site or page has a high score by a third party tool, the author is relevant to the information I want to give a citation too. The information is likely trustworthy and modern algorithms may be able to link that author together with their knowledge base, and then see that you source experts and not just “high authority” sites.
External Links from The Website
Link and SEO neighborhoods matter with SEO, and you don’t want to source and cite a page or domain that has a bad SEO neighborhood. Unfortunately sites can get hacked and what was a solid place to reference becomes bad overnight, but this is also somewhat easy to cleanup. Keep an eye on the places you source regularly and you may even want to write to them if you notice they had a vulnerability that got exploited.
Multiple SEO tools offer ways to see where a website links to externally, or go to any search engine you prefer and type in “check for where a website links out to.” They’ll give you a list of free tools, plug the domain in, and you’ll get a list.
From there look for “spammy” types of backlinks that were likely sold or pay to play, and for topically irrelevant ones to the main content from the website. Last check to see if they link externally to porn/adult content, payday, pills, and gambling sites. If they do they are part of a bad SEO neighborhood and likely sell links or got hacked.
If all checks out, they could be a fantastic place to cite if the other criteria below checks out.
Guest Posts and Contributors
If the website actively allows guest posts, devalue the credibility and move them to a lower priority for sourcing. This does not mean all sites that allow guest posts and contributors are bad, it could be the exact opposite. But advertising anyone can submit or write is a red flag it is not a cite worth sourcing.
There’s a few levels of guest posting that will determine if the quality comes back up, or if they should be a last resort option (which there never is a last resort.)
- They advertise or display “write for us” and “guest posts” or “contributors” – if this is on the site it is an immediate devaluation in quality.
- Invitation only – For these sites they typically do not give a way for you to apply, but instead invite you because you’re a known expert on a topically relevant subject matter and have some form of acclaim in your niche. I’ve done this in the past when I wasn’t knowledgeable enough but I wanted the content and knowledge so I invited someone that at the time was.
- Frequency – If the contributors have active columns and update regularly, this could be a good sign that there is value enough in the website to keep them going.
- Original content that is only on this site – Check to make sure the contributed content is not spun content, modified by LLMs and has multiple versions distributed to other sites where you can guest post, and that it is human written and original. If the above does not check out, remove the site from your list of places to cite and source.
- The contributors stick to their area of expertise – If they write about a million topics and create random listcicles vs. knowledge based articles that help people, this is a spammy website and should not get sourced or cited. Guest contributors and posters need to be experts in their field and stick to their core knowledge base in order for the content to be source and citation worthy.
- Bad and spammy types of content – If any and all topics are ok, then this is not a site worth citing. Only source to niche websites when it comes to ones that allow contributors as these sites stick to the topic and provide value for the reader beyond the sourced article.
- Everything is factual – You may be citing an article that is factual and accurate, but if the rest of the site or other similar articles are biased, untrue, lack substance and fact checking, the site can likely harm your referral traffic making it a bad experience and somewhere you don’t want to cite. One exception to this is when it is clearly and conspicuously marked as an opinion piece and not fact checked. The bottom of the page or post is not clear and conspicuous, the top of the reading pane is as the reader should know it is not fact based, but an opinion. This is extra important for medic and YMYL.
Personal Blogs and Company Blogs
We do source and cite personal and company based blogs on a regular basis. If the person is a known and trusted expert, and they write or fact check each of the posts vs. allowing ghost writers to publish freely, it is potentially safe to cite or source. When it comes to a company, chances are they have a branding team, executive team, legal team, and content person or team that fact and quality control checks the information published.
Company’s tend to be the experts on their products and services, so they publish about those based on their experience with their manufacturing, services provided, or audience needs (SaaS and other B2B industries). If the company is known and reputable, or provides valid data points to back up the claim including statistics, this is something that is likely safe to source and cite. The same applies to a personal blog.
Veterinarians may not want to publish to their hospitals website because they’re building a personal brand. The same goes for a fashion consultant or a buyer for a large department store like Nordstrom or Macys. They create their own blog and social media accounts to build their own brand and company based off of their career path. They have direct access to what is trending and on topic, what they’re looking for when purchasing the next season and years’ lines, etc… It doesn’t matter if their site has a ton of traffic, they have the direct insights, experience, and professional knowledge to share what is working.
You have to be extra careful when it comes to medical and financial advice, and everything is situational, but don’t rule out personal blogs from experts in their field, especially if they’re featured in industry journals, as speakers at conferences, and featured in the media regularly.
The Content on the Page
Make sure the claim you are making is backed up in a very easy-to-find way and accurately on the page. AI, LLMs, and other types of machine learning get this wrong a lot of the time. You type in a query and it gives sources, but those sources don’t actually back up the claims, they just mention a small part of it and in some cases none of it at all.
AI and LLMs take the data they learn from parts of these articles and make assumptions on what to present as an answer. That doesn’t make it factual, but they still present it with confidence as fact.
This makes their sources not relevant to your claim, and also potentially dangerous to your audience. With almost every content account we’ve worked on in the last year or two, the writers have begun taking the citation links from LLMs and AI search results vs. actually researching and finding real studies and places to source. We send the feedback on why it isn’t a valid source and ask them to redo the sourcing. Others refuse so we have to replace them with writers that will actually research and find valid sources. AI has a lot of amazing potential, but valid and legitimate citations is not one of them.
If the page you’re citing does not back up the claim, it is not a valid source and should not be given a citation. It does not matter if AI is saying it is there, you have to check yourself as AI will not do it even with the correct prompts. If you do not check and validate that the claim is backed up and is directly relevant to your claim, it is not a valid source.
There is never a one-size-fits all criteria for when and how to source and cite for SEO, but the above strategies can help create a groundwork and set expectations for yourself and your content team if you’re a company or brand. It is one of the things we do with SEO projects whether it is growing a new domain, working on a traffic recovery, or an expansion and growth marketing project.
