Source attribution: show where a claim came from

Link the claim to its origin

If you quote a figure from someone else, link to the document and name the publisher in the sentence. ‘Research shows’ is not attribution.

If the figure is yours, say how you gathered it and link to the method note. Owning the method is what makes you the source rather than a repeater.

Do not launder other people’s pages

Rewriting a competitor’s guide without adding a check, an example, or a local constraint produces a page models can replace with the original. Cite them or do the work.

Keep quotes short and labelled. A page made of other people’s paragraphs has nothing of its own to cite.

• Name the publisher of external figures.
• Link to the primary document.
• Mark your own method when the data is yours.

Make the trail visible on the page

A source note at the end helps, but the sentence that uses the fact should carry the credit too. Footnotes that are images cannot be followed by a text crawler.

When you update a claim, check that the citation still supports it. Stale footnotes are a quiet way to become wrong.

Do outbound links hurt SEO?

Linking to the source of a fact is normal and useful. A page with no outbound links is not more authoritative. It is less checkable.

How should AI-written drafts handle sources?

A human should verify every citation and remove claims that have no source. An unverified draft is not ready to be the thing other systems quote.