Citations are links from your article to authoritative external sources. The generator can include them or leave them out, and the default depends on the kind of page you're writing:
- Blog and informational articles default to citations on. Citing sources is part of what makes informational content trustworthy — the content score itself expects a blog to cite at least one authoritative external source.
- Money pages default to citations off. A service page or landing page exists to convert; an outbound link there hands the visitor an exit and your authority to someone else's site.
When to override the default
Leave the defaults alone unless you have a reason. Turn citations on for a money page when regulation or trust demands sources — medical or financial claims, for example. Turn them off for a blog post only when every fact in it is your own. A citation-free informational article scores lower for a reason.
Turn citations on or off
To change the citation setting:
- In
Generate— or any content tool — find the external links/citations toggle. Its starting position reflects the tool's page type: on for the blog generator, off for money-page tools. - Toggle it if the piece needs the opposite.
- Generate. Citations appear as inline links where a claim uses a source.
How citations are scored
Citations land inline, next to the claims they support, pointing at authoritative domains. The content score → reads them: an informational article with zero external sources loses its citation check, and a money page is not penalized for having none.
Limits and usage
- The toggle controls inline source links. A separate references section, on tools that offer one, is its own option — you can have inline citations without a reference list, and vice versa.
- The generator chooses sources it can verify exist; it doesn't fabricate links to fill a quota. A niche topic may legitimately produce fewer citations than you expected.
If something isn't working
A citation points somewhere weak. Swap it in editing. The picker favors authoritative domains, and "authoritative" is a judgement — yours wins.
The score flags a missing citation on a page you set to off. The score applies blog semantics to blog-type content. If you scored a money page with the blog ruleset, use the page-type-appropriate scoring — see understand the content score →.