Diagnosis

For every topic cluster, sitefire runs a diagnosis agent that analyzes why certain content gets cited by AI engines and yours doesn’t. The output is a structured report that ends with one clear recommended action.

What the Agent Analyzes

1. Visibility vs. Citations

The agent starts by mapping who gets mentioned and who gets cited. These are different signals:

Visibility means an AI engine talks about your brand when answering a question
Citation means it links to your content as a source

A brand can have high visibility (AI engines mention it frequently) but zero citations (they never link to its pages). This is common - and it’s the gap sitefire closes.

2. Citation Landscape

Who owns the citations for this cluster? The agent classifies every cited URL:

Classification	Example
Corporate	Company blogs, agency sites, SaaS review pages
Editorial	TechRadar, Forbes, industry publications
UGC	Reddit threads, Stack Overflow, community forums
Competitor	Direct competitor pages
Own	Your own content

The distribution matters. If editorial sites own 50% of citations, the strategy is different than if corporate blogs dominate.

3. Top-Cited Content (3C Classification)

The agent classifies every top-cited page along three axes to identify the winning formula:

C1: Content Type

The most important signal. AI engines overwhelmingly cite the same type of page for a given query. If every cited result is a blog post, your product page won’t break through - regardless of how good it is.

Content Type	Description
Blog Post / Article	Editorial content - guides, comparisons, listicles
Product / Feature Page	Marketing page for a product, feature, or pricing
Category / Listing Page	Collection or directory of items
Landing Page	Focused conversion page for a service or tool
Video	YouTube or video-dominant result
Interactive Tool	Calculator, checker, generator, playground
Documentation	Reference docs, API docs, knowledge base
Forum / Discussion	Reddit, Stack Overflow, community Q&A

C2: Content Format

How is the content structured? A how-to guide and a comparison article serve fundamentally different intents - even though both are blog posts. Format mismatches are the most common missed opportunity.

Content Format	Signals
How-to Guide	Step-by-step instructions
Listicle	Numbered list - “10 best…”, “top N…”
Definitive Guide	Long-form, “complete guide”, “everything you need”
Comparison	X vs Y, head-to-head evaluation
Review	Single product or service evaluation
Opinion / Thought Piece	Perspective, argument, commentary
Roundup	Curated from multiple sources or experts
Statistics Post	Aggregated data - “N statistics about…”
Checklist	Actionable verification list
Case Study	Real-world implementation with results

C3: Content Angle

What is the hook? The winning angle tells you how to position your content against what already gets cited.

Angle	Signals
Freshness	Current year in title, “2026”, “updated”
Speed / Ease	”quick”, “easy”, “in 5 minutes”
Cost	”free”, “cheap”, “budget”, “open-source”
Audience-specific	”for beginners”, “for enterprise”, “for developers”
Depth	”complete”, “ultimate”, “everything you need”
Niche Specificity	Narrow use case or industry vertical
Authority	”expert-tested”, “we reviewed N products”, data-driven

4. Your Existing Content

Finally, the agent looks at what you already have. Does your site have a page that matches the winning C1 + C2 profile? If so, how does it perform compared to the top-cited content?

The 4 Actions

Based on the diagnosis, sitefire recommends one of four actions:

Diagnosis finding	Action	What it means
C1 or C2 mismatch	Create content	You don’t have the right type or format of page. No amount of optimization will fix a product page competing against listicles.
C1 + C2 match, low citations	Improve content	You have the right page - it just underperforms. sitefire scores it with the GEO Score and generates specific improvements.
UGC dominates citations	Engage UGC	AI engines cite Reddit threads and forum answers, not corporate content. The strategy is to participate where citations happen.
Editorial dominates citations	Editorial coverage	AI engines cite publications like TechRadar or Forbes. The strategy is to earn coverage from the outlets that get cited.

The key principle: when C1 or C2 don’t match, you need new content - not optimization. Only when your content type and format already match the cited results does page-level improvement make sense.