Decision matrix
Match the evidence to the decision
This is a comparison of product categories and workflows, not named vendors. Each row states whether its boundary is documented here, not assessed here, or requires an external source.
| Category | Workflow | Evidence state | Boundary and next need |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evidence and claim governance | Record bounded observations, validate registries, and retain evidence for review. | Documented | The synchronized package documentation describes this evidence-governance workflow; it does not establish a customer outcome. Use Citable when the decision needs inspectable inputs, limits, and a preserved evidence package. |
| Category or vendor feature parity | Compare named products, commercial plans, or unverified feature availability. | Not assessed | No named-vendor feature, pricing, coverage, or quality comparison is assessed on this page. Collect dated primary-source material and have the responsible owner evaluate a bounded comparison separately. |
| Live crawling and index coverage | Monitor how external crawlers fetch, index, and revisit a changing live estate. | Requires external source | A bounded Citable fetch can document its own collection; it cannot establish ongoing crawler behavior or index coverage. A crawler is still required when external crawl, index, or log observations are the decision input. |
| Search-rank monitoring | Measure query positions, market variation, and rank movement over time. | Requires external source | Citable does not collect or infer search ranking positions from an evidence package. A rank tracker is still required when query, locale, device, or time-series rank evidence is needed. |
| AI-visibility monitoring | Observe provider responses, mentions, citations, and recommendation behavior over time. | Requires external source | Readable source content and controlled extraction do not prove downstream provider retrieval, citation, or recommendation. An AI-visibility monitoring platform is still required for controlled external-provider observations. |
Use the tools together
Citable is appropriate when
You need a bounded technical or semantic observation, its inputs and limits, and a retained evidence package before a person makes a publication or remediation decision.
Citable is not a monitoring replacement
Use an external source whenever the decision depends on observed crawler behavior, rank movement, or AI-provider visibility rather than on the bounded source evidence.