Cite authoritative external sources
Checks for citations to reputable external websites to back up factual claims and build trust.
- Link to reputable, high-authority websites to validate factual claims, data, or quotes
- Ensure citations are highly relevant and provide extra value to the reader
- Use descriptive anchor text when linking to external research, studies, or official sources
Rule Details
Linking to other authoritative sites shows that you are part of a broader community of knowledge and helps verify your claims.
Code Example
<article>
<p>
According to the latest report from the
<a href="https://www.who.int/publications" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Health Organization</a>,
urban air quality has become a primary concern for public health in 2024.
</p>
</article>Why It Matters
- E-E-A-T: Demonstrates to search engines that your content is based on reliable data and expert consensus.
- User Trust: Readers are more likely to believe and share content that provides proof for its assertions.
- Contextual Relevance: Helps search engines understand the topic of your page by the "neighborhood" of sites you link to.
- User Value: Provides a path for users to learn more about specific details from primary sources.
Exceptions
- Necessary utility or compliance pages can be intentionally brief and should not be judged by the same editorial-depth expectations as ranking-focused content.
- AI-assisted drafting is not a failure by itself; flag unsupported claims, missing editorial review, or low-originality output instead.
- When a page has both trust-signal issues and crawl/index problems, make the page eligible to rank first and then improve the content quality signals.
Standards
- Use these references as the standard for the final search-facing HTML, metadata, and crawl behavior.
- Check the implementation against Google Search Central: Search Essentials before treating the rule as satisfied.
- Check the implementation against Google Search Central documentation before treating the rule as satisfied.
Verification
Automated Checks
- Inspect rendered HTML and HTTP headers to confirm the expected metadata or crawlability signal is present.
- Test the affected URL with Google Search Console or equivalent tooling where relevant.
- Re-crawl a representative page set after deployment.
Manual Checks
- Confirm the change does not create conflicting canonical-url, robots, or structured-data signals.
Use with AI
Copy these prompts to use with your AI assistant, or install the MCP server to use directly from Claude, Cursor, or Windsurf.
Check
Verify implementation
Review the content for any factual claims that should be backed up with a link to an authoritative source.
Fix
Auto-fix issues
Add external links to reputable websites (e.g., .gov, .edu, or industry leaders) to support your data points.
Explain
Learn more
Explain how citing external sources contributes to the 'Trustworthiness' pillar of Google's E-E-A-T framework.
Review
Code review
Review metadata generation, rendered HTML, structured data, and response headers related to Cite authoritative external sources. Flag exact routes or templates where search-facing output violates the rule, and describe how to verify the final page output.