Why does AI never cite my best page?
Being crawled does not make a page the best source for a question. Google's guidance asks for original information, clear authorship and content made to help readers, and a page that buries its answer or adds nothing new can be passed over. Put the answer in plain text near the top, show who wrote it, and add something other pages don't.
Free to read, no signup. Nova scores your page and lists the fixes in order.
What Google says makes a page worth surfacing
Straight from Google's own documentation. The same habits help any engine that retrieves pages.
Original, people-first content wins
Google asks whether a page offers original information or analysis, covers the topic thoroughly and would be worth recommending. It warns against summarising others without adding value.
Creating helpful, reliable, people-first contentSay who wrote it and how
Google's who, how and why check asks for clear authorship, an explanation of how the content was made where readers would wonder, and a purpose of helping people, not search engines. It says trust matters most.
Creating helpful, reliable, people-first contentKeep key content in text
For AI features, Google says to keep important content in text form, link pages internally so they are easy to find, and keep structured data matching the visible text. No special AI markup is needed.
AI features and your websiteAI-written pages still need a human check
Google says AI content that adds no value can break its spam policy on scaled content. It advises fact-checking and reviewing everything before publishing.
Using generative AI content on your siteFive steps to make a page worth citing
Do it by hand with these steps, or hand the whole thing to Nova.
Pick the page and the question
Choose one page and write down the exact question you want it cited for. A page needs one job.
Nova: suggests your top pages and the prompts each one should win.
Check the answer is plain text and up top
Read the first screen. Does it answer the question directly in text, not inside an image, a tab or a script?
Nova: reads the page as a crawler would and shows where the answer sits.
Check authorship and proof
Add a named author with real background, a last-updated date you actually maintain, and a source for every number.
Nova: lists missing author, date and source details.
Compare it with what gets cited
Ask the engines your question and open the pages they cite. Note what those pages state that yours doesn't.
Nova: pulls the cited pages and lines up the differences.
Fix, then check again
Make the changes, then re-ask the same question in 30 days. Keep the question set unchanged.
Nova: drafts the edits for your approval and re-checks at 30 days.
Short on time? Nova, your AI brand visibility expert, runs this Maneuver on your brand and tracks the result.
Take it to NovaA page score and the fixes, ranked
| Check | Finding | Why it matters | Fix | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer up top | Answer starts in paragraph 6 | Engines and readers look for it first | Move a direct answer to the top | Low |
| Authorship | No named author | Trust is Google's most important factor | Add byline and bio | Low |
| Originality | Repeats three other pages | Summaries add no new value | Add your own data or example | High |
Nova then re-checks the page and the prompt at 30 days, so you see whether the fixes changed anything.
Take this Maneuver into your own AI agent
Get citability-score.md, a ready-to-use skill file with the page checklist, a scoring rubric and a fix template. Drop it into Claude, Cursor or any agent that reads SKILL.md files.
Skill file for Claude, Cursor and other agents
- A seven-point page checklist
- A simple score and ranked fixes
- A re-check routine at 30 days
Questions, answered.
Relevant reads
All articlesLet Nova score your page and rank the fixes
Nova opens with this Maneuver loaded. You approve every change before it ships.