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 the live citation index backing Trakkr Research, using 8,777,687 citations across 208,567 unique domains observed between October 3, 2025 and April 17, 2026.
Claim
Reference sources account for 6.75% of the current citation corpus, making them the strongest named category in the live index.
Why it matters
It shows that answer-friendly structure matters as much as domain prestige.
Supporting metrics
| Metric | Value | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Reference category share | 6.75% | Reference sites are the largest named category in the current index. |
| Citations analyzed | 8.78M | Current live citation index as of April 17, 2026. |
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
- Where AI Gets Its Answers - Flagship study behind this page
- Page JSON - Machine-readable companion file