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Retrieval and RAG

What is Candidate source pool?

The group of documents considered before generation

The candidate pool contains sources that passed an initial retrieval stage. If a page does not enter that group, the generator cannot select or cite it.

What Candidate source pool means in GEO

In a RAG pipeline, publishing is not enough. A page must be discoverable, enter the candidate set and survive reranking.

Why it matters

Expand semantic coverage, external authority and internal linking to increase the routes by which a source can enter the pool.

What to check in practice

Identify the stage where the source disappears: access, initial retrieval, reranking, generator context or citation selection.

How it connects to other concepts

Candidate source pool belongs to retrieval and rag. It is best analyzed alongside related terms because AI visibility depends on several stages and signals rather than one isolated optimization.

Common mistake

Blaming final copy when the document never reached the model that writes the answer.

Turn these concepts into metrics

Bee LLM tracks mentions, citations, position, sentiment and competitors across major AI engines.

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