You.com Answer API: Audit a Cited Answer from One Search
You.com says its Answer API performs one search and returns a citation-backed answer. Preserve the response, map citations to claims, and audit source support.
Direct answer: You.com documents its /v1/answer endpoint as a single-search workflow that returns a citation-backed answer in Markdown. That product description provides a useful audit boundary: preserve the one request and its complete response, then verify whether each cited source supports the claim beside it.
The endpoint’s existence does not prove that every answer is accurate, complete, current, or diverse. Those are evaluation questions that require a fixed query set, source rubric, repeated runs, and saved absences.
Save the complete run
Record the endpoint, date, account or project alias, request body, query, parameters, locale, SDK or client version, status, latency, raw JSON, rendered Markdown, source list, citation fields, errors, and cost fields available to the application. Keep credentials out of the artifact.
| Layer | Record | Do not infer |
|---|---|---|
| Retrieval | Query and returned sources | Complete web coverage |
| Answer | Exact Markdown and structure | Factual accuracy |
| Citation | Claim-to-source relationship | Source quality or support |
| Outcome | Reviewer rubric and decision | Stable ranking |
Perform citation mapping before normalizing whitespace or rewriting the answer. Transformations can detach a citation from the text it was meant to support.
Audit each material claim
- Break the answer into factual claims, interpretations, recommendations, and uncertainty statements.
- Identify the citation nearest to each material factual claim.
- Open the source and locate the supporting passage.
- Classify support as direct, qualified, conflicting, absent, or inaccessible.
- Record freshness, source ownership, scope, conflicts of interest, and whether the source is primary.
- Mark uncited material claims separately; do not assume a nearby source covers the paragraph.
When a source supports only part of a sentence, split the claim. A citation to a product page can establish a documented feature but not an independent performance conclusion.
Evaluate source selection
Classify each source by type: official documentation, standard, law or regulation, original research, dataset, qualified analysis, reporting, community discussion, vendor marketing, or unknown. Measure whether the answer used the closest available source for time-sensitive facts.
Record duplication and concentration. Five links can represent one underlying announcement repeated across syndication. A diverse-looking source list can still have one factual owner. Conversely, a single primary source may be the correct support for a narrow product fact.
Keep source accessibility in the evaluation. A citation that resolves for the model but not for the reader weakens verification, even when the underlying statement happens to be correct.
Turn the audit into a test
Create a query set with stable expected facts, current product facts, disputed questions, local or time-sensitive questions, and questions where the correct answer should express uncertainty. Freeze the rubric before reviewing outputs. Retain errors, refusals, missing citations, and zero-source answers.
Report results only inside the sample and date. A rerun is a new observation because the web, index, retrieval system, and answer model can change. Separate retrieval quality, citation support, answer correctness, completeness, latency, and cost rather than compressing them into one score.
The tool-score evaluation guide provides the rubric boundary, and the citation-ready passage test supplies the claim-level standard.
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