> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.get3rd.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Owned vs. Earned citations

> Owned vs. Earned tells you whether an AI-visibility gap is a content problem on your own domains or an outreach problem on third-party websites.

3RD splits every citation into two buckets — and the bucket tells you which team fixes it.

## The two types

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Owned" icon="house">
    The cited URL is on **your website or a subdomain** (`acme.com`, `blog.acme.com`). Visibility you control directly with content.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Earned" icon="globe">
    The cited URL is on **someone else's website** — review sites, listicles, press, forums. Influenced through outreach and authority-building.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

A citation is classified as owned when its URL domain matches your brand's registered domain — which is why keeping your [brand profile](/workspace/brand-profile) domains accurate matters.

## Owned → content strategy

A **low owned share** means AI isn't learning from you. Either:

* Your pages **don't exist** for those prompts → close the gaps with [Content coverage](/drivers/content)
* Your pages exist but **aren't extractable** → improve structure and clarity with [Content quality](/drivers/content) and [Crawlability](/drivers/crawlability)

## Earned → outreach strategy

**High-value earned sources** — pages AI cites repeatedly for your Must-Win prompts — are your outreach targets. Getting featured, corrected, or updated on one trusted page can influence every answer that draws from it. See [Authority & Outreach](/drivers/authority-and-outreach).

<Tip>
  Don't treat owned share as a score to maximize. Healthy AI visibility rests on **both**: owned pages that answer your buyers' questions, and earned pages that back you up. A 100% owned citation profile would actually be a warning sign — it means no independent source vouches for you.
</Tip>

## Related

* [Citation Share](/metrics/citation-share) — the owned slice as a headline metric
* [Understanding citations](/results/citations) — the full Citations page