# The answer feed and data updates

> Connect one Ahrefs Brand Radar report, managed for you or your own, and the daily data update brings in AI answers, cited pages and visibility every morning. The Data tab keeps every run, the full schedule and the way to fix a feed that stops.

sourcesignal documentation, Tracking. Updated 2026-10-22. The page for people: https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/tracking/the-answer-feed-and-data-updates. Every article: https://www.sourcesignal.ai/llms.txt

Your project reads its AI answers from one answer feed: an Ahrefs Brand Radar report. sourcesignal can create and manage that report for you with one click, or you connect a report you already own. Once a feed is connected, a data update runs every morning at 06:00 UTC. It collects the latest AI answers, the pages they cite and your brand's visibility, and whatever is new moves through the processing steps without you touching anything.

The Data step of the project's Settings area is where you watch that happen. It opens on three tabs: "Imports" (one row per import run), "Snapshots" (the datasets each update saved, plus any you upload; see [Snapshots](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/tracking/snapshots.md)) and "Schedule" (the timetable of everything that runs for the project).

## Connect the answer feed

Open Project settings, then "Visibility tracking". The card is titled "Ahrefs Brand Radar". Leaving the report blank switches the daily update off.

### One-click setup

Where it is offered, the box "One-click setup" creates a Brand Radar report for the project and keeps its prompt list in sync: prompts you add or remove here follow into the report.

1. Type your brand's canonical domain in "Brand domain" (a domain, not a display name). The button stays disabled with "Enter the brand domain first." until you do.
2. Press "Create & connect report".
3. The box now reads "Platform-managed report" and names the country your prompts are checked in, taken from the project's target market (see [Markets and locations](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/tracking/markets-and-locations.md)).

"Sync prompts now" pushes prompt changes to the report straight away. If the card warns that prompts are filed under another country, it re-files them; then delete the old copies in Ahrefs.

> **Heads up:** Changing the report ID under a platform-managed report hands management back to you. sourcesignal stops writing to it.

### A Brand Radar report you already own

1. Optional: an admin saves your organization's Ahrefs API token under Settings, then Organization, in the card "Ahrefs API token". It lets you browse your reports and is never shown back.
2. On the "Ahrefs Brand Radar" card, paste the report ID or the whole Brand Radar URL into "Brand Radar report". With a token saved, you can press "Browse my reports" and pick one from "Choose a Brand Radar report" instead.
3. Press "Save".
4. Enter the "Brand domain" and press "Save". Without it, the mention, share-of-voice and impressions history is not collected.

A report you own is read, never written to: engines are turned on and off in your own Ahrefs account (see [AI engines](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/tracking/ai-engines.md)).

## The Imports tab

An import is one data update as a record: one morning's answers, cited pages and visibility. There is one import per project per UTC day.

The header shows "Last update" with its time, a live countdown ("Next data update 06:00 UTC · in 15 h") and the button "Run import now". Each row leads with the run day and "Scheduled" or "Manual". The columns:

- **Run**: how the run ended: Ready, Failed (it can be partial), Nothing new, Running or Queued.
- **Datasets**: how many of the three arrived, as "2/3". They are cited pages, brand visibility and raw AI answers. Fewer than 3 is not the same as zero.
- **Pages** and **Answers**: what this run saved for its date, not the project total.
- **By engine**: cited pages each engine contributed. A page cited by two engines counts under both, so these can exceed Pages.

A failed row prints the first thing it is missing in plain words. The trash icon deletes an import and its child snapshots permanently once you confirm "Delete"; "Older imports →" pages back through the history.

## An import's detail

Click a row to open the run. The subtitle gives the status, "Scheduled run for" or "Manual run for" the project, how long it ran and what it saved.

A notes card follows the run's tone. Failed: "Import errors" lists every line in plain words, with "Retry" (or "Open settings") and "Contact support". Finished with gaps: "What this import is missing · N" lists each gap in plain words, then "Everything else came in." with "Show them" for the feed's notes on how the rest was collected.

Three dataset cards, "Cited pages", "Visibility" and "AI answers", show their row counts and an "Open" link to the snapshot. A dataset that did not arrive carries the badge "Missing" and "This dataset wasn't imported. Re-run from the header to retry."

## How to run a check now

A manual run collects whatever the engines have produced since the last run, and nothing more.

1. On the Imports tab press "Run import now". It is disabled with "Connect your data feed first." when the project has no feed.
2. In "Run an import now", confirm the project and press "Run import". If today's import already exists, it is replaced.
3. Read the toast ("Import complete.", "Import partially succeeded: some datasets are missing." or "Import finished with errors. Check the row for details.") and open the new row.

"Run import now" on a failed row, or on an import's page, starts a fresh import for today. It never retries the old run and cannot re-run a historical day.

While a new project waits for its first answers, the console's first-run card ("Your questions are queued with the engines") offers "Check now" instead. Checks have a short cooldown: three minutes after the last run, one minute after a failed one. When answers land, the toast says how many answers landed, for example "N answers landed. The console is waking up."

## Nothing new

A data update that asks the feed and finds nothing newer than the answers already held ends as "Nothing new". No data was pulled and no AI work ran. It is a healthy outcome, shown muted and never red. The run's page reads "Nothing new this run", and the Schedule's Note reads "nothing new yet".

## The Schedule tab

The Schedule tab is the full timetable of everything that runs for the project, on a UTC clock. It shows every row, and a muted row's Note says what it waits for ("connect your data feed", "connect GA4 or Search Console", "no verified wins yet", "connect a mailbox", "project paused" or "project archived").

| What runs | Cadence | Applies when |
|---|---|---|
| Data update | Daily 06:00 UTC | A feed is connected |
| First answers | Hourly at :15 UTC until your first answers land | The first two days of tracking |
| Traffic refresh | Daily 06:30 UTC | Google Analytics 4 or Search Console is connected |
| Placement check | Daily 07:30 UTC | The project has verified wins |
| Weekly briefing | Mondays 07:00 UTC | Always |
| Outreach sends | Every 5 min inside your send window | A mailbox is connected |

Under "Data update" one line names the engines the feed runs and how often, read back from the report on each scheduled update: "ChatGPT, Gemini weekly · Perplexity daily. You pick these under AI engines in project settings." For a report you own it ends "Set in your own Ahrefs report, not here." You choose which engines; the cadence belongs to the report.

Every row's info hint ends with your own clock ("06:00 UTC is 07:00 where you are"). "See the full pipeline →" opens the Pipeline tab (see [The engine room and pipeline](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/autopilot/the-engine-room-and-pipeline.md)).

## When the feed fails

When a data update fails, a notice appears in the chip at the bottom right of the app. Its title names the state and the project: "Tracking is down" (the update failed), "Tracking is paused" (every engine in the report is off) or "Tracking isn't connected" (no report is set). Its line says what to do.

On a wider screen the chip carries the buttons on that project's pages, and "Open project" elsewhere. Its title always opens the project's Data tab. The failed import's "Import errors" card carries the same buttons.

A failure on the very first check after connecting is treated as the feed warming up, not as an outage. The notice clears on its own once a run reaches the feed again.

### How to fix a failing feed

1. If the notice names a fix only you can make, make it first: turn an engine on in your own Ahrefs report, or reconnect the Ahrefs token under Settings, then Organization.
2. Press "Retry". When a platform-managed report is missing or has every engine off, it reconnects the report and re-sends your prompts; otherwise it runs the import again. A good outcome reads "Reconnected. The import landed." or "The import landed."
3. Where the notice shows "Open settings" instead (your own report no longer exists, or none is connected), press it and choose a report on the "Ahrefs Brand Radar" card.
4. If it keeps failing, press "Contact support". The support drawer opens with the failing import, the report and how long it has been failing attached (see [Support](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/trust/support.md)).
5. Confirm on the Imports tab that the newest run reads Ready or Nothing new.

## From Spot or your own agent

Ask for "Tracking health" when a quiet stretch worries you: it reads the feed's checks and the answers stored by day over 7 to 30 complete days and says whether a dip was an outage or a quiet feed. "Find jobs" lists the project's runs of the last 30 days, 50 at most, and "Run a job again" prepares a fresh run of a failed or canceled one. A prepared run shows as a change card and starts when you press Apply, unless your setting under Settings, Agents applies that kind of change at once. See [Spot, the in-app agent](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/spot-and-agents/spot-the-in-app-agent.md) and [Connect your own agent over MCP](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/spot-and-agents/connect-your-own-agent-over-mcp.md).

## Related

- [AI engines](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/tracking/ai-engines.md): Each project tracks its buyer questions on its own set of AI engines, chosen within your plan's count. This article covers the catalog, the AI engines card, how often each engine is checked (its cadence), paused engines and the engine status in the rail foot.
- [Snapshots](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/tracking/snapshots.md): Each data update saves its AI answers, visibility figures and cited pages as snapshots, one dataset saved on one day. Open one, compare two visibility snapshots, upload a Brand Radar CSV by hand, or delete a snapshot you no longer need.
- [The engine room and pipeline](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/autopilot/the-engine-room-and-pipeline.md): Where you watch the autopilot work: the engine room shows the run in progress and your levers, and the Pipeline page shows the steps your data moves through, each with a status and when it moves next.
- [Markets and locations](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/tracking/markets-and-locations.md): Choose the countries you sell into, in priority order. The first country is where every prompt is checked; the rest, and any US states you serve, shape how your tracking plan is phrased.
- [Support](https://www.sourcesignal.ai/docs/trust/support.md): Support is a conversation with the sourcesignal team that lives in the app and in your inbox. Here is how to reach it, what to send, and what to do when a screen in the app does not load.