In May 2025, Google brought 25 of america into a closed-door room astatine I/O to talk astir the post-click SERP. The instruction we near pinch was short: create non-commoditized content.
Here’s the uncomfortable part:
For 15+ years, we ne'er commoditized content. We commoditized the sale. We built billions of pages that took a messy quality problem, targeted immoderate keyword the personification compressed it into, and answered pinch immoderate type of “buying now is the champion choice.”
We did it good for our brands, and we built a sales-first web.
Oops.
AI hunt is the measure for that cognitive indebtedness yet coming due. For years, we skipped past the buyer’s existent reasoning and answered “buy now” alternatively of their existent questions.
Paying that indebtedness disconnected is simply a nexus building problem. Not just hyperlinks, but the links betwixt sources, roles, risks, and decisions.
A co-citation spread study maps those links, showing which sources AI hunt trusts for each purchaser domiciled and wherever your contented is missing from the decision.
In this piece, we’ll show you really to tally it: representation the sources AI hunt sounds and cites, find the domiciled your contented doesn’t support yet, and build the plus that closes the gap.
Moving from anchor matter to anchor context
We’ve been moving co-citation study connected the nexus chart for 15 years astatine Citation Labs.
In 2011, I published a six-step co-citation method for nexus builders: find the pages that curate a topic, count which sources they mention together, and reverse-engineer what made those pages worthy citing.
What’s changed now is the portion of work: from focusing connected anchor matter to anchor context.
Anchor matter told a hunt motor what a page was about.
Anchor discourse tells the exemplary why that grounds belongs successful a circumstantial answer, for a circumstantial role, astatine a circumstantial constituent successful the decision.
The activity moves from describing the page to supporting the decision.
Instead of asking which pages mention a taxable together, you’re asking which sources an AI adjunct trusts erstwhile each purchaser domiciled asks astir the aforesaid decision, and which domiciled your contented fails to support.
That missing determination support is the co-citation gap.
How to tally a co-citation spread study by hand
A co-citation spread study counts what AI hunt sounds and cites crossed same-phase, same-problem prompts for different purchaser roles.
The overlaps and absences show which decisions your contented doesn’t support yet.
You don’t request package for this, conscionable 1 purchaser decision, the committee astir it, a group of prompts, an AI instrumentality that shows its work, and a spreadsheet.
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1. Map the committee, and constitute down each role’s fear
List everyone who has to opportunity yes earlier the point you waste gets bought — the existent deciders, not the org chart.
For example, for a funded biotech that’s choosing a logo, the committee is the CEO, in-house counsel, ops, and marketing.
Next to each, constitute what that personification is acrophobic of. That fearfulness is the mobility they’ll bring to an assistant, truthful constitute it successful first person:
- CEO: Do we look for illustration a serious, fundable company?
- Counsel: Is this sanction aliases people going to get america sued aliases forced to rebrand?
- Ops: Will this past accumulation (from a favicon to signage to a 96-well sheet label)?
- Marketing: Will this execute (get recognized, guidelines retired acold to investors and recruits)?
Four roles, 4 fears, 1 decision.
Note: Solo purchases activity the aforesaid way. The “committee” is 1 buyer’s competing concerns. The portion isn’t the committee, it’s the prime point.
2. Write 1 punctual per role
Create 1 controlled punctual per role, each based connected the aforesaid buying decision. Keep the script fixed and alteration only the role. That makes the role’s domain of believe the variable.
Follow these 5 rules:
- One shared scenario. Keep the business fixed; alteration only who’s asking.
- First person, successful the role’s voice. Model their words, worries, and perspective.
- Put the domiciled successful a circumstantial situation. Generic prompts get generic answers. Specific situations trigger retrieval, and retrieval is the data.
- Bundle the role’s existent concerns. Real deciders transportation a cluster, not 1 tidy question.
- Name nary brands. Brand names pollute the citation set.
Here’s the CEO punctual from our “make a logo” example:
“I’m the founder-CEO of a biotech that closed a Series A, briefing a creation patient connected a caller logo. I want a constituent of position to show them, not a blank page. What do credible, well-funded biotech brands stock visually? Which startups nailed a post-raise rebrand? Which botched it? What do investors and pharma partners publication into a young brand? What should a non-designer for illustration maine usage to unsmooth retired a fewer options?”
Then adhd 1 kill-switch punctual per role: “What’s the 1 point present that, if we get it wrong, we can’t undo? What would make maine opportunity no?”
This surfaces the difficult veto role.
Run much than 1 phrasing. The awesome is what repeats, not what appears once.
3. Capture what the adjunct searches, reads, and cites
Use an adjunct that exposes its sources. For each role’s run, unfastened the activity aliases sources sheet and transcript 3 fields into your spreadsheet:
- Sub-queries generated
- Pages read
- Pages cited
Tag each publication page by type arsenic you go:
- Forum/hub (Reddit, aggregators, etc.)
- Primary/official (a regulator, a standards body, etc.)
- Vendor (services and solutions)
The operation shows what benignant of grounds each domiciled trusts.
In our example, astir a 3rd of everything publication was Reddit, and complete 40% was high-volume hubs.
Your pages will benignant into 3 states:
- If it’s publication and cited, it was consulted and used.
- If it’s publication but not cited, it was consulted but dropped. That’s a contented problem.
- If it’s not read, it was ne'er consulted. That’s a discoverability problem.
The dropped-but-read pages are wherever the cheapest wins hide.
4. Build the citation matrix
Now, move your benignant database into a matrix — this is the co-citation analysis.
Make 1 statement per unsocial cited URL, 1 file per role, and 1 count file showing really galore roles cited it.
Note: One statement per cited URL
Here’s what the matrix looked for illustration successful our “make a logo” example:
Sort by count. You’ll spot which sources are shared, which are role-exclusive, and which roles person almost nary overlap.
5. Find the domiciled pinch the veto power
With the matrix sorted, look for 3 structures.
The shared halfway is everything cited by 2+ roles. If it’s astir empty, the committee is disjointed (you service it spot by seat). If it’s substantial, the committee is convergent (you triumph the commons and the gatekeeper).
An isolated decider is a decisive domiciled whose cited sources are mostly role-exclusive. An empty edge is 2 must-agree roles that stock nothing.
Then group priority: whose “no” is final, and whose sources overlap slightest pinch everyone else’s?
That’s your veto × isolate seat. Build contented location first.
Capture this successful a spreadsheet you tin update and rerun:
6. Add the shape axis
Run the study again, but move the aforesaid determination guardant successful time. Keep each domiciled the aforesaid while changing the scenario:
Choosing → Rolling Out → Getting Value and Renewing
The cited group shifts astatine each shape while the proprietor of the reply hands disconnected arsenic the purchaser moves.
Note wherever you’re coming successful 1 shape but missing successful others.
Those gaps are plus targets.
7. Create a contented and outreach plan
Your matrix gives you a prioritized contented strategy:
- Gatekeeper: The veto-isolate seat, decisive and unserved.
- Empty edges: Where 2 must-agree roles stock nothing.
- Shared core: Sources cited by aggregate roles.
- Phase gaps: Stages wherever your marque appears, past disappears, by role.
The caller activity is placement, and the exemplary already told you where. The sub-queries show the domains it trusts for each role.
In our example, the CEO tally ran site:businesswire.com, site:fiercebiotech.com, and site:prnewswire.com; the ops tally ran site:developers.google.com/search/docs
Nearly each domiciled appended “official” to pursuit superior sources.
That’s your placement and outreach database — written by the AI assistant. Earn your grounds on the surfaces it already uses erstwhile answering that role.
And retrieve the portion you’re building in: anchor context, not anchor text.
The asset’s occupation isn’t to show a celebrated option. It shows: who this helps, what it solves, when it fits, and why it belongs — for this role, astatine this prime point.
8. Measure the impact
Lock your punctual group and rerun it successful a fewer weeks. (We’ve seen results successful little than 3 weeks pinch our clients.)
Rebuild the cited file and comparison it to the baseline. Look for 3 movements: your marque appears wherever it didn’t before, placed sources participate the gatekeeper’s answer, aliases an quiet separator starts to fill.
It’s tedious by hand, but the loop is ever the same: baseline, build, re-run, compare.
The cited group is the scoreboard.
If you’d for illustration a faster measurement to tally this, reach retired to Citation Labs. We’ll stock our punctual stack pinch you.
How to move the matrix into decisions
Once the matrix is sorted, reappraisal the style of the citation set.
If a fewer sources are cited by astir of the committee, it’s convergent. There’s shared crushed to win. If the apical is astir bare, it’s disjointed. Every domiciled is successful its ain world, and generic “bottom of funnel” contented won’t transportation the decision.
In our make-a-logo example, precisely 1 root was cited by aggregate roles: Canva’s brand-kit page. At the publication level, Reddit, Wikipedia, and arXiv showed up crossed roles, but almost nary of that survived into what sewage cited.
Now find the spot that shares almost thing pinch anyone.
That’s the gap.
In our illustration run, it was Counsel: 14 cited sources, nary shared pinch different role, each from legal, regulatory, and trademark sources.
Lowest title connected the map. Highest leverage.
You whitethorn besides find an quiet edge: 2 roles that some person to opportunity yes but mention thing successful common. Their criteria collide pinch nary contented successful between. Each quiet separator is simply a span plus waiting to beryllium built.
Don’t beryllium amazed by who the gatekeeper is. In the committees we’ve mapped truthful far, the veto-isolate has consistently been compliance, security, aliases legal. The org floor plan underweights them, but the citation representation doesn’t. It shows the spot that tin extremity the determination and has the slightest contented support.
That’s wherever you build first.
Then cheque the shape re-run. When you move the committee from choosing to rolling retired to getting value, the citation group shifts. Most brands attraction connected “choosing” and disregard everything after.
Also, the determination doesn’t extremity astatine the sale. It runs done rollout, adoption, renewal, and the adjacent soul justification.
The move that pays is to resistance the precocious “no” upstream, truthful the veto lands arsenic a redirect alternatively than a demolition.
For our logo committee, “gatekeeper first” became a Founder’s Preliminary Trademark Clearance Brief: a one-page little the laminitis fills retired earlier Counsel reviews a sanction aliases mark. It captures projected assets, commercialized context, preliminary checks, and circumstantial questions for Counsel.
Watch what that azygous page does:
It gives the CEO thing Counsel tin reappraisal earlier the activity goes excessively far. The veto surfaces earlier money gets spent. And some sides debar the silent standoff: “Why do they support blocking this?” versus “FFS, did they moreover check?”
The little makes them cheque (in a shape that Counsel tin enactment on) earlier either of them gets angry.
That’s anchor matter becoming anchor context: “here’s precisely what this decider needs, astatine the infinitesimal they request it, successful the shape that lets them opportunity yes.”
This is the activity for nexus builders
For 15 years, we built links astatine Citation Labs.
The bully ones were astir putting the correct grounds successful beforehand of the correct personification astatine the infinitesimal they had to make a decision.
AI hunt didn’t extremity that work. It clarified it.
Build much than hyperlinks. Build the links betwixt prime points: the places wherever you trim effort, uncertainty, and the consequence of being misread.
Start pinch the spot that tin opportunity nary and that nary 1 is penning for.
That’s the gatekeeper. That’s the gap.
That’s the work.
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