Why do public sources matter?

Answers can draw on external information

RAG research combined retrieved external information with text generation. This research architecture is not an exact description of every current AI product.

For an owner, a useful question is which pages describe the place and how current they are. An old event listing or accommodation description can remain available after your own site changes.

Map the sources

• Owned pages: what can you correct directly?
• Managed profiles: where do you have access?
• External pages: who can receive a correction request?

Do not confuse the existence of a source with proof that a particular AI answer used it. Make that claim only to the extent supported by the observed evidence.

Turn the list into work

For the most important error, identify the information owner and a link where the correction can be checked. A source inventory becomes valuable when it leads to an assignable task rather than another unmaintained spreadsheet.

Sources and background

• Lewis et al.: Retrieval-Augmented Generation · 2020-05-22

Updated: September 17, 2026