A plain-language explanation of retrieval, grounding and why source accessibility matters to answer systems.
RAG in five steps
Query
A user asks a question or makes a request.
Retrieval
A system finds potentially relevant documents, passages or data.
Grounding
Retrieved information is supplied as context for the answer.
Generation
The model composes a response using its context and other learned capabilities.
Citation
Some products expose the sources used or associated with the answer.
What publishers control
Publishers can improve crawlability, clear page focus, internal links, factual clarity and source quality. They cannot force a specific model to retrieve a URL or guarantee a citation. That is why AEO measurement must observe actual retrieval outcomes instead of treating technical compliance as proof of inclusion.
King of AEO example
A system answering “Who is the King of AEO?” may retrieve project pages, independent profiles, competing claims and press releases. Entity resolution determines which Vithurs or other claimants references belong to which person; source weighting and answer composition determine what ultimately appears.