Glossary

This glossary defines the words sourcesignal puts on screen, alphabetically and in the app's own words.

Use it when a label is new to you. For every status a page, a draft or a sequence can hold, see Statuses.

A

• Account: Your organization on sourcesignal, also called the workspace. It holds one plan, one bill, your projects and your team.
• Agent token: A secret from Settings, then Agents, that lets your own MCP client (such as Claude Code) act as you, within the scopes and projects you choose.
• Agreed to place: The publisher said yes, but nothing is live yet. It counts as nothing until the page is confirmed live.
• AI answer: One engine's reply to one prompt on one day, with the brands it named and the pages it cited.
• AI draft: A suggested Inbox reply, written from your approved claims, Never list and fee policy. Nothing sends until you press "Send reply", or Spot or your agent sends it where you set "Emails and posts to publishers" to Apply at once.
• AI engines: The answer engines a project tracks: ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot and Grok, within your plan's count.
• AI review: The run after each data update that groups, scores, classifies and recommends for every new page.
• AI visibility (mention rate): How often AI answers mention your brand, as a share of valid checks (a tracked prompt asked of one engine that returned a usable answer).
• AI visibility score: The headline of a free AI visibility report: the share of measured answers naming your brand, out of 100.
• Answer feed: The Ahrefs Brand Radar report a project reads its AI answers from, also called the tracking feed.
• Archive: Hides a project and keeps its data. An owner or admin brings it back with "Restore" on the Projects page.
• Auto-promotion rule: Criteria that promote matching pages to outreach on their own, as drafts only, while the master switch and the rule's own switch are on.
• Autopilot: The tool that works your project: it runs data updates, scores pages, finds contacts, drafts pitches and sends what you approved.

B

• Baseline, grace period and post period: The windows a win is read over: 28 days before its live date, a 7-day pause, then 28, 56 or 84 days after.
• Brand domain: Your brand's website as a bare host (example.com). Once tracking is live, it changes only in project settings.
• Brand-mention and Source-only: Brand-mention answers name brands, so outreach can work. Source-only answers name no brand, so the aim is to become the cited source.
• Buying stage: Where a question sits in the buying journey: Awareness, Problem-aware, Research, Comparison, Consideration or Purchase.

C

• Change card: The one approval surface for anything Spot or your agent prepares that does not apply at once. It waits 24 hours for you. See Change cards: apply and undo.
• Cited page: A page an AI answer linked to as a source. Each one becomes an opportunity.
• Comparison set: The fixed set of brands every report share is measured against. A removed brand stays listed with its removal date.
• Competitor: A brand buyers compare you with. Competitors join from your AI answers, a site read or by hand.
• Complete days: Every report window ends yesterday, because today's checks are still being collected.
• Conversation: One sequence's thread with one person, in one timeline. A reply stops the sequence's follow-ups.

D

• Daily decision budget: How many new pitches Autopilot deals you a day, 1 to 30, 10 by default. Conversations never count toward it.
• Data update: The daily run at 06:00 UTC that collects your latest AI answers, cited pages and visibility, then scores what is new.
• Dataset: One of the three things a data update captures: cited pages, visibility and AI answers.
• Deck: The decisions only you can make, dealt one card at a time on the Autopilot console, conversations first.
• Deep dive: A read of your site, sitemap first, up to your plan's page count, that proposes prompts and competitors for your approval.
• Delivery unknown: The mail provider accepted an email, then reported an error, so it may have arrived. Nothing more sends until you decide.
• Disclosure line: "Disclosure: I work with <Brand>." Every new post, and every reply that names your brand, is drafted with it.
• Do not contact: The organization-wide list of addresses and domains every send refuses. See Do not contact.
• Draft: A sequence that has not launched. In Content, the written page, with every fact pinned to a source.

E

• Email verification: A check of how deliverable an address looks: Verified, Accept-all, Risky, Checking, Unchecked or Failed. Only Failed blocks a launch.
• Engine room: The drawer behind the engine bar at the foot of every project page: the run in progress, rules and levers, and recent runs.
• Evidence labels: How visibility on a win's linked prompts moved after it went live: Early, No clear movement, Possible, Moderate or Strong association. Association, never cause.
• Existing mention: Whether a page already names or links to you. "Named, no link" is usually your easiest ask.

F

• Fee policy: Your answer when a publisher asks to be paid: decline, negotiate up to a ceiling, or accept up to it. It shapes only drafts you send.
• First answers: The first AI answers after tracking switches on, usually within minutes to a few hours.
• Focus: Your own lens on today's deck, such as quick decisions only. It changes only what you are dealt and ends with your day unless you keep it.

G

• Gap: A tracked topic where AI answers pass you over and your site has room for a page.

H

• Hidden and paused: The two states of a held account. Hidden lasts 7 days: data is kept but not shown. Paused follows: nothing runs, nothing is deleted, and a plan brings it all back.

I

• Identified AI-assistant sessions: Google Analytics 4 visits recognized as coming from AI assistants. A floor, not a total.
• IMAP and SMTP: The standard ways a mail app reads and sends mail. "Connect other email" uses them for any provider that is not Gmail or Outlook.
• Import: One data update as a record: its day, how it ended and the datasets it saved.
• Insufficient data: Too few checks to show an honest number. It differs from "Not connected" and from zero.
• Intent: How much being named in a question's AI answer would be worth, 0 to 100. An AI estimate, not a measured rate.

K

• Keyword: A term buyers type into a search box, tracked per market, with its monthly volume, cost per click and difficulty.

L

• Launch: Your approval to send. The first email is booked for the earliest slot your timing and the mailbox hours allow.
• Live already: Your brand was already on the page before any outreach. Recorded, not a win.
• Live placement: A win: a published page confirmed to carry your mention after your outreach. Only a recorded win sets it.

M

• Mailbox: A Gmail (Google Workspace), Outlook (Microsoft 365) or IMAP inbox your organization connected to send pitches and receive replies.
• Mailbox limits: One address's sending days, hours, per-day cap and gap between emails. Defaults: Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:00 London, 50 a day.
• Mailbox status: Active, Pending, Reauth required (nothing sends until you press "Reconnect") or Disconnected.
• Mandate: What you let one agent do on its own on one project, by name or by kind of change, within decisions and paid work a day, until a date at most 90 days out. It is ended, never edited. Emails and posts never go alone.
• Mark as posted: Records a post as done, with its link. A reply or new post that names your brand counts as a win from that day.
• Market AI share of voice: Your share of AI voice across the wider market, from Ahrefs Brand Radar. Never combined with your tracked share.

N

• Needs reply and Awaiting: Needs reply means they wrote last, so it is your turn. Awaiting means you wrote last ("Awaiting · 5d").
• Needs review: Drafts waiting for you to read. Marking one reviewed moves it to Ready to launch; nothing sends.
• Needs you: A launched sequence waiting on your decision: a bounce, a failed send, a pause or an undecided reply.
• Never list: The "Never: what we must not say" section of the outreach prompt. A draft that uses a word it names cannot be signed off.
• Nothing new: An import that found nothing newer than the answers already held. A healthy outcome, shown muted.
• Nudge: A short follow-up the AI drafts once your reply reminder runs out on a publisher who replied. Nothing sends for you.

O

• Opportunity: A page an AI engine cited when answering one of your tracked prompts. See What an opportunity is.
• Opportunity type: How the AI suggests you act on a page: Brand mention · Outreach, Brand mention · Content, Source-only · PR/Authority, Consider or Ignore.
• Outline: Autopilot's plan for a content page: a title, sections, a closing FAQ and what you will need to supply.
• Outreach prompt: The project's standing brief for every AI-written email: approved claims, the Never list, a model email and voice.
• Owner, admin and member: The three roles. Owners control everything, admins manage the team and billing, and members work in projects.

P

• Page type: What kind of page the AI sorted it as, such as Besticle / Listicle, Review or Directory. It decides which templates apply.
• Parked: Set aside for now. A parked page or draft leaves the default view and the deck until you bring it back.
• Paused by your plan: A project or tracked prompt the plan no longer covers. It keeps everything and returns when the plan has room.
• Period briefing: A written AI read of the last 7, 30 or 90 days against the window before, refreshed every Monday.
• Pin: "Pin to propose" on a row of the Opportunities table. Pinned rows lead the table and go first to your promotion rules, and the platform never parks a pinned page.
• Pipeline: A step of a project's Settings, with a countdown to the next data update and the steps your data moves through, each with a status.
• Placement check: The weekly re-read of every live placement. When your brand is gone, the win moves to Removed and owners and admins get one email.
• Platform-managed report: A Brand Radar report sourcesignal created for the project and keeps in sync with your prompts. A report you own is only read.
• Points (pts): The difference between two rates: 40% to 45% is +5 pts.
• Posts: Outreach that is not an email: a thread reply, a new post, a listing or a profile claim, published from your own account.
• Priority: A page's 0 to 100 priority for outreach; the queue is ordered by it. "Why this score" on its deck card, and the "Priority score" hint in the detail panel, name the reasons for that page.
• Project: One brand or client you track, with its own website, markets, prompts, competitors, engines and report.
• Promote: Hand a page to outreach: a contact is found and a pitch drafted for your review. Promotion never sends.
• Prompt: A question your buyers ask AI assistants, tracked on a schedule. Your prompt allowance is one pool across all projects.
• Prompt status: How a prompt moved in the period: Improving, Stable, Declining, Not visible, Insufficient data or Removed.

R

• Ready to launch: Drafts you signed off. Any edit or sender change sends one back to Needs review.
• ref: The short code under an in-app error message. Paste it into a support message if a page keeps failing.
• Rejected: A page turned down before any outreach. It stays on record, and any draft on it is canceled.
• Removed: A win whose mention a check no longer finds. It stays in history with its removal date.
• Reply reminder: How many working days to wait on a publisher who replied before a nudge is suggested. 4 by default; 0 turns it off.
• Review by hand: "Review N by hand" on the Opportunities toolbar walks the filtered set one page at a time, a key per decision: A approves, R rejects, L marks it Live already, M is maybe, Shift + A approves and promotes, and Enter opens the page.
• Research contacts: Finds people to write to at a page's publisher, within a daily allowance and your monthly email verifications.
• Routes: How a cited page is approached: Email, Community, Listing or Held (nothing is drafted).

S

• Seat: A person in your account. Seats are unlimited on paid plans; a trial includes up to 5.
• Sending window: A per-project narrowing of a mailbox's sending days and hours. It never widens the mailbox's own window.
• Sequence: One pitch to one person: an initial email and its follow-ups. Follow-ups stop the moment the person replies.
• Service area: Something you offer, read from your site. Each area becomes a group of buyer questions.
• Share link: A white-label, read-only link to the live report. Revoking it stops it at once.
• Signature: A footer added at send. The one set in your mail app is not added, because mail sent from here never passes through its compose window.
• Snapshot: One dataset saved on one day, by a data update or a CSV you upload. See Snapshots.
• Spot: The in-app agent and the brand's mascot. Spot answers from your data and prepares every change as a change card, unless your setting under Settings, Agents applies that kind of change at once.
• Stash: Pitch cards past today's budget. "Pull another stack" deals 5 more, up to 30 a day.
• Steering rule: A sentence the whole project follows, such as "No listings". It is ended, never edited.
• Stranded drafts: Drafts whose mailbox can no longer send. Reconnect the same address, or re-home them to another mailbox.

T

• Target markets: The countries you sell into, in priority order. The first country is where every prompt is checked.
• Template: Copy you write once, with tokens such as {brand}, or AI instructions the AI writes each email from.
• Topic: The group the AI puts a prompt in. Reports and Gaps work topic by topic.
• Tracked share of AI voice: Your share of brand mentions in answers to your tracked prompts, against your comparison set.
• Tracker: An Outreach step showing every launched sequence as a card. The Calendar step shows the same sends by month.
• Trial: 14 days on Growth's limits, with no card.
• Triage: Deciding what a reply meant: Interested, Agreed, Lost or Do not contact.

U

• Unconfirmed online: A post you marked posted that no check has found yet. It still counts as a win.
• Undo: Takes back your last deck decision within ten minutes, except a discarded draft, a win, a snooze or a mark-as-posted.

V

• Verification pending: A placement waiting for a live check. It counts in no report number until confirmed.

W

• What stays: The Billing picker where an owner or admin chooses what stays on a smaller plan. Nothing is deleted.
• Win: A published page confirmed to mention your brand, or a post marked posted with its link. See Wins and verification.