Consumer PR
The Source Tier System: Which Sources AI Engines Trust About Consumer Brands
The Source Tier system ranks the sources AI engines draw on for consumer-brand answers into four tiers: structured reference data, established publishers, independent community discussion, and brand-owned pages. Tiers 1–3 carry the weight because none are brand-controlled, which is precisely why engines trust them. A GEO program must therefore work on sources it does not own — accurate reference data, earned publisher coverage, and real community presence.