What is a Signal? Facts vs. Signals Explained

Every FAQ the platform generates is built from two ingredients: a question and an answer. These come from two completely different places.

Facts are information that comes directly from your sources: your website, PDFs, and any documents you've uploaded. Facts are primarily used to write the answers in your FAQs, but they can also influence which questions get generated, for example, a unique certification or product feature in your sources may trigger a specific question the platform wouldn't have generated otherwise.

Signals are inputs that inspire the questions in your FAQs. They can come from outside your brand (consumer search queries, forum discussions, review patterns) but also from your own brand-owned sources, such as customer reviews you've uploaded or FAQs already published on your website. They represent what real people are actually asking.

💡 In short: Signals primarily shape the questions. Facts primarily shape the answers. But both can influence both sides.

Facts vs. Signals at a glance

A concrete example

Imagine you sell a natural sunscreen. Here's how Facts and Signals work together:

Signal (from external research): People search for "does natural sunscreen actually work?"

Fact (from your product page): "Our sunscreen is SPF 50 and certified by Dermatest with a 5-star rating."

Result: The platform generates the FAQ question "Does [Brand] natural sunscreen actually work?" and writes the answer based on your SPF rating and certification, not from the review or search query.

💡 The question comes from the world. The answer comes from you.

Why both matter

A good FAQ has to do two things: ask the question in the way your customers actually phrase it, and answer it with accurate, brand-approved information.

Without Signals, the platform would only generate questions based on what's already in your sources. It might miss the questions real customers are actually typing into search engines. Signals close that gap.

Without Facts, the platform has nothing reliable to write answers from. That's why every answer must trace back to a source you've provided. If a Signal identifies a relevant question but there's no matching Fact, it becomes an Opportunity instead of a published FAQ.

💡 Think of it this way: Signals make your FAQs findable. Facts make them trustworthy.

Where signals come from

Signals are gathered automatically by the platform. They can come from two places:

External sources:

• Google search query data

• Forum and community discussions

• Customer review patterns from third-party platforms

• Industry research

Brand-owned sources:

• Reviews you've uploaded to the platform

• FAQs or Q&A content already published on your website

• Any other brand-owned content that contains question patterns

✅ You don't need to curate signals manually. The platform extracts them automatically from both external research and the sources you provide.

How Facts are extracted

You don't create Facts manually. When you add a source, the platform reads it automatically and extracts individual Facts: specific pieces of information about your product. For example, from a product page it might extract:

• "Contains no parabens or artificial fragrances"

• "Suitable for sensitive skin"

• "Available in 50ml and 200ml"

Each Fact is stored with a reference to its original source. When the platform writes an FAQ answer, it combines relevant Facts into a clear, coherent response. You can see exactly which source each Fact came from in the Facts & Signals tab.

💡 The more precise and complete your sources are, the better the Facts, and the better the FAQ answers. You influence Facts by improving and adding sources, not by editing Facts directly.

What about negative reviews?

Negative reviews may appear as signals in the platform. This doesn't mean they'll become FAQs.

Signals only inspire questions. Answers are only generated from your Facts. So a negative review might flag a question topic, but the platform won't write a negative answer. It will look for a factual, source-based response from your own content.

If you see a question that you don't want published, you can archive it.

Viewing your Facts and Signals

Go to the Facts & Signals tab in any Entity to see everything the platform has extracted. You'll find:

• Facts organised by source

• Signals from external research

• Exact text quotes showing where each fact was pulled from

💡 You don't need to manage this tab actively. It's mainly useful for understanding why a particular FAQ was generated, or for troubleshooting when an answer doesn't reflect your sources as expected.

Common questions

❓ We uploaded reviews that include negative feedback. Will those appear as FAQs?

Very unlikely. Negative reviews may appear as signals (potential question topics), but answers are only generated from your Facts. If a question does appear that you don't want, archive it.

❓ Can I add my own signals?

Not directly. But you can influence which questions get generated by adding new sources, particularly for topics you want to cover that aren't being picked up automatically.

❓ Do I need to manage the Facts & Signals tab?

Not actively. It's there for transparency if you want to understand where an answer came from.

❓ What's the difference between a Fact and a source?

A source is the original document you upload (a webpage, PDF, or text). A Fact is a specific piece of information the platform extracts from that source. One source can produce many Facts.

❓ Why does a topic only have one or two FAQs?

This usually means the platform found Signals for that topic but didn't find enough matching Facts in your sources to generate more answers. Adding a targeted source and triggering a Rerun will typically fill the gap.