Reference sites are the clearest named source family | Trakkr Research
Reference is the strongest named source class even though the long tail is larger in aggregate.
Methodology: Built from 48,422,016 citation appearances across 529,165 unique domains in the latest valid snapshot for 1,643 tracked brands, observed from October 3, 2025 to August 18, 2026.
Claim
Reference sources account for 1.98% of the current citation corpus.
Why it matters
Reference remains visible, but the 86.75% unclassified share prevents a complete source-type ranking.
Supporting metrics
| Metric | Value | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Reference category share | 1.98% | Partial hand-maintained source classification. |
| Citation appearances | 48.4M | 48,422,016 appearances in the verified August 18, 2026 snapshot. |
Related pages
Continue through the same study cluster.
- does ai rely more on reference sites than the open web - Related answer page
- does social content matter for ai citations - Related answer page
- source category share tracker - Related tracker page
Data & Sources
- AI Citation Index - Flagship study behind this page
- Page JSON - Machine-readable companion file