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Citation signals

Quotation signals

Quotation signals are formatting patterns that BLURSOR recognises as possible quoted passages. The count describes detected text and markup; it does not verify the speaker, attribution, accuracy, or credibility of a quotation.

Checked against BLURSOR’s measurements ·

What it means

A relevant quotation can let a reader distinguish someone else's words from the page author's explanation. Clear attribution and context are what make that distinction useful. Quotation marks alone cannot tell a reader whether a statement is genuine or applicable.

HTML provides blockquote for an extended quotation and q for an inline quotation. How a quotation looks on screen depends on the page's styling. A large decorative testimonial card is therefore a presentation choice, not independent evidence about the speaker or the statement.

Illustrative example

Hypothetical example: an attributed interview excerpt

Imagine an article that includes this invented interview sentence: 'Our team reviews every delivery exception before the next collection.' The author identifies the fictional speaker's role and explains which process the sentence describes.

This is not a real quotation or an endorsed operational claim. In a real article, retain the source record and the speaker's intended meaning. Repeating the sentence in a pull quote does not create an additional independent source.

How BLURSOR measures it

In the report: Quotation signals

BLURSOR scans retained raw HTML after removing several non-content areas. It counts extracted blockquote blocks containing at least 25 characters, plus passages of at least 25 characters enclosed in matched straight double quotes or curly double quotes.

The signals are added rather than deduplicated by meaning. A blockquote that also contains matching quotation marks can contribute more than one signal. Single quotation marks, shorter excerpts, generated punctuation, and some inline quotation markup may not match. These choices describe this detector; they are not editorial requirements for a good quotation.

The citation checks require at least five extracted readable blocks. If that basis is insufficient or the page evidence is suppressed, the result is unavailable rather than a measured zero.

What to do next

  1. Use quotations when the exact words help the reader. Identify who said them and connect the passage to a source or appropriate surrounding context.
  2. Check wording, attribution, and relevance against the original material before publication, especially when an excerpt has been shortened.
  3. Do not add repeated or invented quotations to increase the count. Review the page's claims and sources as an editorial task.

What it cannot tell you

  • Zero signals can be reasonable for a product page, a short answer, or original writing that does not need quotations.
  • The count does not predict citation by an AI system, establish factual accuracy, or measure the number of distinct experts represented.

Sources and further reading

The definitions below describe the underlying concepts. The measurement section describes BLURSOR’s own checks.

Related explanations