Primary Source
A primary source is the original record of something: a document or object made at the time being studied. The Library of Congress sets primary sources against secondary sources, which retell or interpret events later. Online, the primary source for a fact is where it started, like the study itself or a business's own website.
Source: Library of Congress, Getting Started with Primary Sources, checked October 29, 2026
What Primary Source means for your business
If you're here for a history or school assignment, the first two sentences above are the ones you need. The rest of this page is about the web, where the primary source is the study, not the article about it, and your own website for your hours and prices.
One of the questions Google gives site owners for judging their own pages asks whether content that draws on other sources adds something of its own, instead of just copying or rewriting them. Another asks whether it gives original information, reporting, research or analysis.
We'd link each fact on your pages to where it started, not to a blog that repeated it. We'd also make your own site the plain, current record of what you do and where you work, since nobody else can be the primary source for that. If AI answers quote directories and old articles about you instead of your own site, making your pages the first-hand record worth quoting is the work we'd start with.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, Google's AI Overview gave the history and research meaning only, citing university library guides, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian and YouTube. ChatGPT gave the same meaning with a wartime letter as its example and cited nothing.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
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