What it means
A source link gives a reader a route to inspect supporting material. Its usefulness depends on the destination, the surrounding claim, and whether the linked material actually supports that claim. A link to a general homepage often provides less precise evidence than a link to the relevant document.
Outside links can also be partner pages, social profiles, advertisements, or unrelated references. Their presence should prompt a content review, not an assumption that the page cites independent research. Descriptive link wording helps the reader decide what they will find.
Hypothetical example: one report linked twice
Imagine a guide that links to two sections of the same external report, once beside a figure and once in a source note. If the addresses differ only after the fragment marker, BLURSOR treats them as one destination.
A second link to a different document on that same host can produce another external URL while leaving the number of outside hosts unchanged. These are invented examples of counting behaviour, not claims about the quality or results of any report.
How BLURSOR measures it
In the report: Links to other websites
BLURSOR extracts links from paragraph, list-item, and blockquote content in retained raw HTML. It excludes several surrounding areas such as navigation and the footer. It keeps HTTP and HTTPS destinations, resolves relative addresses, and ignores email, telephone, JavaScript, and same-page fragment links.
The detector compares hostnames after lowercasing and removing an initial www. It removes URL fragments before deduplicating destinations; query strings remain significant. Other subdomains count as different hosts, even when the same business owns them. The reported external-domains list is therefore a hostname list, not a verified list of independent publishers.
Citation metrics are unavailable when fewer than five readable blocks are extracted or the page's evidence is suppressed. Links outside the inspected blocks or added after JavaScript runs may not contribute to this raw-page count.
What to do next
- Review each important factual claim and link to the most relevant original material when a source is needed.
- Check that links still open the intended document and that dates, methods, and quoted conclusions match your wording.
- Use meaningful link text and remove irrelevant or redundant references. Do not add outside links merely to increase the number.
What it cannot tell you
- BLURSOR does not fetch every linked source, verify independence, or assess whether it substantiates the nearby claim.
- Zero external links can be appropriate for original product information. A larger count does not establish authority or predict citation by an AI system.
Sources and further reading
The definitions below describe the underlying concepts. The measurement section describes BLURSOR’s own checks.