Source classes & types

How BrandAxis classifies sources along two axes — the Class of the domain and the Type of the URL — so you can see at a glance which kinds of pages AI models reference about your brand.

Every source in BrandAxis is classified along two independent axes:

  • Class — what kind of website the source is (e.g. a corporate site, a news outlet, a user-generated forum)
  • Type — what kind of page on that site the URL points to (e.g. a homepage, a listicle, a comparison post)

Both axes are filterable in the Sources panel. Reading them together tells you not just who’s talking about you but how they’re talking about you — a listicle on a news site is a very different signal from a discussion thread on a user-generated forum.

Domain Class

The Class tells you the nature of the publisher.

ClassDescription
CORPORATEOfficial company websites and corporate pages
EDITORIALNews sites, blogs, online magazines, and other publications
INSTITUTIONALGovernment, educational, and non-profit organisation websites
UGCUser-generated content from social media, forums, and communities
REFERENCEEncyclopaedias, documentation, and other reference materials
COMPETITORWebsites and content from direct competitors
OTHERMiscellaneous or uncategorised sources and URLs

URL Type

The Type tells you what’s on the page the AI referenced.

TypeDescription
HOMEPAGEThe main entry page of a website
CATEGORY PAGEA page that lists products, articles, or subcategories
PRODUCT PAGEA page detailing a single product or service
LISTICLEAn article structured as a list (e.g. “Top 10 Laptops of 2024”)
COMPARISONAn article or page that directly compares two or more products or services
PROFILEA directory-style entry for a company, person, or product (e.g. G2, Yelp, Crunchbase)
ALTERNATIVEAn article focused on alternatives to a specific product or service (e.g. “Best HubSpot Alternatives”)
DISCUSSIONContent from discussion forums, comment sections, or community threads
HOW TO GUIDEInstructional content with step-by-step guidance on completing a specific task
ARTICLEGeneral articles, news pieces, features, and other editorial content
OTHERAny page type that does not fit into the categories above

How classification works

We maintain a database of domain → Class mappings and infer URL Type from the page structure and content. Unknown domains and URLs fall back to OTHER until our classifier learns them.

Filtering by Class or Type

In the Sources panel, the Categories tab rolls sources up by Class. Inside each Class you can drill into individual Types. You can also stack filters — e.g. show only sources where Class = EDITORIAL and Type = LISTICLE — to find the publishers writing about your space in the formats that matter.