Gemini citations: the same source standard, a different surface

Ground the test in a real question

Use Gemini with a question your guide answers, and ask for sources if the interface allows it. Record whether the citation is your URL, a rewrite of your words on another site, or a competitor.

If a scraper outranks the original, the fix is often canonicalisation and a clearer byline, not a new article.

Make the facts easy to ground

Dates, definitions, and named methods ground more reliably than opinions. Mark the date you updated a figure. Say who the advice is for.

Organisation and article schema should match the visible byline and headline so the grounded result has one identity to attach.

• Test a customer question.
• Put dates next to figures.
• Keep schema aligned with the byline.

Do not chase Gemini with a separate microsite

A second domain written only for Gemini splits the entity. Improve the canonical guide on the main host.

Re-test after Google has recrawled. Grounding uses indexed content, so an unpublished draft cannot be the citation.

Is Gemini optimization a separate project from SEO?

No. It is another place indexed pages get quoted. Technical access, clarity, and entity consistency are the work.

Why does Gemini cite a syndicated copy?

The copy may be what it indexed, or the original may be hard to fetch. Make the original canonical, indexable, and clearer than the copy.