Claiming a source
Mark a source as claimed once your brand is genuinely on the page, record what you found in notes, and keep the completion signal honest.
Updated October 20, 2026
Claiming is how a source row goes from "we should be on this" to "we are". It is the completion signal for a placement, which only works if it means exactly one thing.
The rule
Claim a source when the brand is genuinely present on the page. You can open the URL and see your name on it.
Not when the author has agreed, not when the draft is sent, not when the directory submission is pending. A claimed row is read by you in three months, by a teammate, and by your agent, and all three will treat it as done.
What to record
Two fields do the work.
Claimed, with the URL where the brand actually appears. That may not be the URL you started from: you pitched the roundup's main page and ended up in a sub-page, and the claimed URL is the one that carries you.
Notes, for everything that is not a yes or a no: who you contacted, what they said, what the submission requires, why this one is not worth pursuing. The note is the handover. A row with a decision and no reason gets re-litigated every quarter.
Why the discipline matters
Three things read the claimed flag.
- Your own coverage picture. Unclaimed rows sorted by how often a model reads them is the work list. An over-claimed list produces an empty work list and a false sense of coverage.
- Your agent. On a two-way connection the agent reads unclaimed opportunities as the queue, and records a claim when a placement lands. A claim it cannot trust makes the queue useless.
- The before and after. A claim dates the placement, which is what lets a later change in citations be attributed to it.
Claiming your own pages
Pages on your own domain are already marked as yours, so claiming is for third-party sources. The exception is a multi-division site, where a sibling division's page is on your domain and is not yours; URL scope is what tells those apart.
After a claim
Log the optimization against the source, so the work has a dated entry, and leave the row claimed. Then wait: models re-read third-party pages on their own schedule, and a new placement takes days to weeks to show up in what gets cited.
Re-check your claimed rows once a quarter. Directory listings lapse, roundups get rewritten, and a placement you won in March may be gone by September with nothing telling you.
Questions about claiming a source
- When exactly should I claim?
- When the brand is actually present on the page, live, and you can open the URL and see it. Not when the placement is agreed, drafted or promised.
- Does claiming change my Visibility Score?
- Not directly. Claiming is a record of work, not a measurement. The score moves if and when models start citing that page with you on it.
- Can I unclaim one?
- Yes, and you should if a placement is removed. A claimed row that no longer carries you quietly overstates your coverage.