Preserve the relationship between the returned Gemini text and each citation annotation before converting the answer into a report. A source list without that relationship can make it impossible to see which claim a URL was meant to support.
Start with the schema your integration used
Google's current Search grounding documentation describes text annotations with source URLs and start/end indices for the illustrated Interactions response. Other API versions can expose different structures. Record the API surface and schema version instead of treating one example as a universal payload.
This article describes an engineering review method. It does not claim that MonitorMyGEO exposes every raw annotation or provides a custom offset editor.
Preserve text before transforming it
Save the exact returned text with its annotations. Trimming, translating, removing characters or joining blocks can shift an index away from its original sentence.
Illustrative example: a citation refers to characters within the second text block. If a renderer concatenates two blocks and applies the original index to the combined string, it can attach the link to the wrong statement. Maintain block identity and use the provider's indexing convention.
Do not silently “repair” a malformed annotation by attaching it to whichever sentence looks most plausible. Keep the source as returned and flag the mapping as unresolved.
Validate a mapping
- Confirm that the referenced text block exists.
- Check that the index range is ordered and within that block.
- Extract the indicated span before formatting.
- Retain the source URL and title.
- Compare the final displayed citation with the original span.
- Test non-ASCII text and multiple annotations.
A valid range proves that a mapping can be rendered. It does not prove the linked source supports the statement. That still requires opening the source and reviewing the claim.
Make reporting failures visible
If a report cannot preserve text-level links, label its source section as a source list rather than presenting it as a sentence-level support audit. Keep raw provenance privately available to authorized reviewers.
Avoid merging annotations merely because they share a domain. Two pages on that domain may support different claims, and several claims may cite the same page.
Read the citation tracking guide for the wider observation workflow. Next, confirm the provider surfaces MonitorMyGEO measures and review one displayed citation against its available original answer context.
Fact-checked: 17 October 2026. Examples are illustrative; no customer results are reported.