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app.athenahq.ai/sources/visualization

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Purpose

The Sources Visualization page provides a bird’s-eye view of how web sources influence LLM outputs regarding a customer’s brand and their competitors. It renders a Sankey flow diagram that maps out citation attribution patterns, showing exactly which websites are most strongly correlated with brand or competitor mentions. For marketers, this page is crucial for identifying content gaps and discovering new PR or outreach targets. By seeing which high-traffic domains are driving competitor recommendations but ignoring their own brand, customers can strategically prioritize where to publish content or request backlinks.

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What’s on the page

Page Header Displays the page title along with a small information (i) icon. Hovering over the icon displays a tooltip explaining the chart:
  • “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 Bar A sticky row of filter chips that scope the data feeding into the chart.
  • Date Range: Scopes responses to a specific time window.
  • Models: Filters to selected AI models (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Grok, DeepSeek).
  • Prompt Status: Limits to active, paused, or all prompts.
  • Competitors: Limits which competitor nodes are shown on the right side of the chart.
  • Personas & Locations: Scopes responses to specific target audience segments.
  • Topics & Prompts: Scopes to responses from selected prompts.
  • Prompt Tags & Source Tags: Filters based on tags assigned to prompts or sources.
  • Attributes: Scopes to responses featuring selected brand attributes.
  • Mentioned: Filters to sources where the brand is explicitly mentioned (Yes/No).
Saved Views Dropdown A dropdown menu labeled “Views” (or the name of the currently active view) that allows users to save their current filter configuration as a preset and easily load it later. Chart Header & Controls Sits right above the diagram, displaying the “Top Sources” title and a brief subtitle explaining the layout. It includes:
  • Magnify Toggle: A switch to turn the fisheye lens effect on or off.
  • Focus Mode Indicator: Appears only when a user has clicked a specific node. It reads “Viewing connections for [Node]” and includes a “Reset view” button.
Citations Sankey Diagram The interactive flow chart itself.
  • Left Axis (Sources): Indigo nodes representing the top citing web domains.
  • Right Axis (Brands): A green node representing the customer’s brand, and orange nodes representing tracked competitors.
  • Connections (Links): Flowing lines connecting a source to a brand. The thickness of the line is directly proportional to the number of LLM responses where the source was cited and the corresponding brand was mentioned.
Drilldowns
  • Clicking a connection (link): Triggers a drilldown to the Responses page. The app will fetch the exact LLM responses that make up that connection (where the LLM cited the specific source and mentioned the specific brand/competitor) and navigate the user to view them. A “Return to Sources Visualization” back-link is provided on the destination page.
  • Clicking a node: Filters the diagram in-place. All connections that do not involve the clicked node will be hidden, allowing the user to isolate the flow of a single source or competitor.

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What you can do here

  • Toggle the Magnify lens: Switch the “Magnify” toggle to enable a fisheye effect that zooms in on nodes and links as you hover over them with your mouse.
  • Focus on a specific entity: Click any node (source, brand, or competitor) to isolate its connections.
  • Reset the focus: Click the “Reset view” button that appears when a node is focused to return the chart to its default state.
  • Investigate responses: Click the connecting line between any source and brand/competitor to jump to the Responses page and read the exact LLM outputs driving that data.
  • Filter the chart: Add or modify filters in the top bar to narrow down the data pool.
  • Access Mobile Filters: On mobile screens, click the “Filters” button to open a bottom drawer containing all filter options.
  • Manage Saved Views: Inside the “Views” dropdown, users can:
    • Save as view: Name and pick an icon for their current filter setup.
    • Load: Click any saved view to apply its filters.
    • Edit: Change the name and icon of an existing view (inside the ⋯ menu).
    • Update filters: Overwrite a saved view with the currently active filters (inside the ⋯ menu).
    • Set/Remove default: Choose which view loads automatically when visiting the page (inside the ⋯ menu).
    • Export: Download a CSV of prompts matching the view’s filters (available after selecting checkboxes next to views).
    • Delete: Permanently delete a view (inside the ⋯ menu). Confirmation message: “Are you sure you want to delete the view ‘[name]’? This action cannot be undone.”
  • Clear all filters: Click the orange “Clear All” button to reset the filter bar.

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Data shown

The visualization is built using LLM response data gathered for the customer’s tracked prompts, filtered by the active date window and any applied segments (models, locations, etc.). It displays the user’s tracked competitors and specifically highlights the top 12 source domains (by total citation count) within that filtered dataset.

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Common workflows

Explore which sources drive brand mentions
  1. Set the Date Range filter to the desired window.
  2. Optionally apply Model or Prompt Status filters to narrow the scope.
  3. Hover over the Sankey diagram connections feeding into your brand’s green node on the right.
  4. Look for the thickest links to identify which left-side source domains are most frequently driving your brand’s visibility.
Investigate competitor citation sources
  1. Apply a “Competitors” filter in the top bar if you want to focus on specific rivals.
  2. Look at the orange competitor nodes on the right side of the diagram.
  3. Hover over the links connecting to them to see exactly how many responses cite a source alongside that competitor.
  4. Identify high-traffic source domains that connect to competitors but not to your brand, these are prime content gap opportunities.
Drill into specific response evidence
  1. Locate an interesting connection (e.g., a source heavily driving a competitor’s mentions).
  2. Click the connection line directly in the chart.
  3. Wait briefly while the system fetches the matching data (a loading toast will appear).
  4. Review the resulting Responses page, which is pre-filtered to show only the LLM outputs that generated that specific connection.
Focus on a single node’s connections
  1. Click any node (e.g., Wikipedia on the left, or Competitor A on the right).
  2. The diagram immediately updates to hide all unrelated links, showing only the flow in and out of your selected node.
  3. Click “Reset view” in the top right of the chart to restore the full graph.
Save and reuse a filter configuration
  1. Set up your desired filters (e.g., Last 30 days, ChatGPT only, specific Personas).
  2. Click the “Views” dropdown in the filter bar.
  3. Click “Save as view”, type a name, pick an icon, and hit Save.
  4. On future visits, quickly reapply this exact setup by selecting it from the Views dropdown.

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Empty, loading, and error states

  • Empty: If no data matches the current filters, or if the user has no tracked competitors configured, the diagram becomes blurred and dimmed, showing a generic placeholder “skeleton” graph.
  • Loading: While the system fetches the complex chart data, a centered animated spinner appears in the middle of the chart area.
  • Error: If the data fails to load due to a server or network issue, a red error toast notification appears at the bottom of the screen, and the chart remains either in its previous state or shows the empty placeholder.
  • Linked from:
    • The “Sources” section of the left sidebar navigation.
    • The “Visualization” tab at the top of the main Sources table page.
  • Links to:
    • The Responses page (when a user clicks a connection link in the chart).
    • The Subscription/Billing portal (if the user’s plan is inactive and triggers the billing gate).

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Common support questions

“Why are some of my known sources missing from the chart?” To keep the diagram readable, the Sankey chart only displays the top 12 source domains by total citation count within your current filter scope. Sources ranking 13th or lower will not appear. “Why does the chart look blurred out?” The chart blurs into a placeholder state when there isn’t enough data to render connections, or if your workspace doesn’t have any tracked competitors set up yet. “Can I see the exact responses that make up a connection?” Yes! Just click the link (the thick line) between any source and brand/competitor. You’ll be taken directly to the Responses page, automatically filtered to show the exact evidence for that connection. “Why is the ‘Source Mentions Competitor’ filter missing here?” That specific filter is intentionally hidden on the Visualization page. It is heavily utilized on the standard Sources data table, but the queries running this Sankey flow diagram do not support it.