Source attribution

Attribution answers who or what the interface credits for information. Depending on the product, it may appear as a domain, publication title, source card, or link next to a passage. The working unit is an archived answer with a visible source reference.

Section sources:[1] Google Search Central[2] Google Gemini Help

Retrieval is the system selecting context, citation is an observable link, and attribution is the user-visible relationship between a claim and a source. They may coincide but need not: a source may be used without a visible link, while a source card may lead to a page that supports only part of the wording.

Section sources:[1] Google Search Central[2] Google Gemini Help

If Gemini shows three source cards beneath a paragraph, record each card and check which sentence it actually supports. A domain appearing in the source list does not mean the entire paragraph is based on that domain.

Preserve the query, full answer, date, product mode, card order, final destination URLs, and a screenshot. Then map each checkable claim to the destination text and code the support as full, partial, or absent.

Attribution measures the presentation of one answer, not a permanent relationship between a system and a site. It proves neither retrieval, ranking influence, user referral, nor the publisher's agreement with the AI wording.