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app.athenahq.ai/sources/visualization

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Purpose

The Sources Visualization page provides an interactive Sankey diagram that illustrates the relationship between the web sources AI models cite and the brands they mention. It answers the question: When an AI model recommends a brand, where is it getting that information? For marketers, this page is crucial for identifying content gaps and discovering which third-party sites drive AI recommendations for competitors. By tracing thick connection lines from specific domains to competitor nodes, customers can quickly find high-value sources they need to target to improve their own AI visibility.

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What’s on the page

Page header Displays the page title alongside a help icon (i). Hovering over the icon displays a tooltip explaining the graph’s logic.
  • Tooltip copy: “More About Source Attribution. This graph shows where LLMs get their information from when they mention your brand and competitors. Thicker connections = more responses where an LLM mentioned the brand (RIGHT) and cited a source (LEFT) that mentions the brand. LLM Citations Deep Dive - When an LLM mentions your brand, it is from finding a source that mentions your brand. This is finding those deep sources, and pointing you to them. Competitor intel - See which sources drive competitor recommendations. Content gaps - Find high-traffic sources that mention competitors but not you. Click any connection to see the actual LLM responses”
Filter row A horizontal bar containing chips to narrow down the data, a dropdown for saved views, and an “Add filter” menu. If any non-default filters are active, a “Clear All” button appears on the right. Magnify toggle & focus indicator A small bar just above the chart. It contains a “Magnify” toggle switch that turns on a fisheye zoom effect (making crowded parts of the chart easier to read). When a user clicks a node in the chart to focus on it, an indicator appears here saying “Viewing connections for X” next to a “Reset view” button. Top Sources Sankey diagram The interactive visualization itself.
  • Left nodes (Indigo): Cited source domains (e.g., high-traffic blogs, news sites, or directories). “www.” is stripped from the names for readability, and long names are truncated with an ellipsis.
  • Right nodes (Green / Orange): Your brand (green) and your tracked competitors (orange).
  • Links (Connections): The flowing bands between the left and right sides. The thicker the band, the higher the number of AI responses that cited the source domain and mentioned the corresponding brand.
Hover tooltips Cursor-following tooltips that provide exact numbers.
  • Node hover: Displays the name of the source or brand, the total number of citations, and the percentage.
  • Link hover: Displays the exact number of responses and the percentage. It also spells out the relationship: “① LLM cited [Source] as a source” and “② [Source] & the LLM mention [Brand].”

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What you can do here

  • Explore connections: Hover over any link to see exactly how many times a source drove a mention for a specific brand or competitor.
  • Focus on a single source or brand: Click on any node (a domain on the left or a brand/competitor on the right). The chart will gray out everything else and only show connections tied to that node. Click the “Reset view” button in the top right to clear the focus, or click the node again.
  • Drill down to specific responses: Click on a connecting link between a source and a brand. This takes you directly to the Sources page, pre-filtered to show the specific URLs from that domain and the actual AI responses that mentioned the brand.
  • Magnify clustered data: Turn on the “Magnify” toggle above the chart. As you move your mouse over the chart, the nodes and links near your cursor will dynamically enlarge, making it easier to select thin connections.
  • Filter the data: Use the filter bar to restrict the chart to specific models (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude), date ranges, or tags.
  • Save current filters: Click the Views dropdown on the far left of the filter bar to save your current setup as a new view or switch between existing saved views.

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Data shown

The chart is powered by your tracked competitors and the last 30 days (or selected date range) of mention and citation data. The left side shows up to the top 12 source domains that have driven mentions for your brand or competitors. Domains with zero brand or competitor mentions are excluded from the visualization.

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Common workflows

Investigate a content gap for a competitor
  1. Open the Sources Visualization page.
  2. Look at the orange competitor nodes on the right.
  3. Trace the thickest links flowing into a competitor to see which domains on the left are driving their mentions.
  4. Click one of those thick links.
  5. You’ll be taken to the Sources page, filtered to that domain and competitor, where you can review the specific articles and AI responses to see why the competitor is being recommended.
Focus on one source’s connections
  1. Find a major industry publication (source node) on the left side of the chart.
  2. Click the node.
  3. The chart filters to show only that source’s connections, allowing you to clearly see how its citations are distributed across your brand and competitors.
  4. Click “Reset view” at the top right when finished.
Toggle magnification while exploring dense areas of the chart
  1. Move your mouse near a cluster of small nodes or thin links.
  2. Toggle the “Magnify” switch on.
  3. Move your cursor around the cluster to seamlessly zoom in on elements for easier hovering or clicking.
  4. Toggle it off to return to a uniform scale.

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Empty, loading, and error states

  • Loading: While fetching the data or loading competitors, a circular animated loading spinner appears in the center of the chart area.
  • Empty: If there is no data matching your filters, the chart area displays a dimmed, blurred “dummy” Sankey graph as a placeholder. It cannot be clicked or interacted with.
  • Error: If the data fails to load due to a system error, there is no explicit error message on the screen; the page will display the blurred dummy graph as a fallback.
  • Linked from: The main navigation sidebar (under Sources), and the main Sources page (via a visualization toggle).
  • Links to: The detailed Sources page (when clicking a connection link on the chart).

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Common support questions

Why does the chart look blurry and I can’t click anything? When you see a blurry, faded chart, it means there is no data available for the filters you’ve selected, or your tracked competitors haven’t finished loading yet. Try expanding your date range or removing some filters. Why don’t I see all of my cited sources on the left? To keep the diagram readable, we only display up to the top 12 source domains by total mentions. Domains that don’t drive any mentions for your brand or your competitors are also filtered out. What do the colors represent? Indigo (purple/blue) nodes on the left represent the source domains. On the right, the green node represents your brand, and the orange nodes represent your competitors. How can I see what the AI actually said? Click on any of the flowing connection lines between a source and a brand. This will navigate you to a filtered view where you can read the exact AI responses.