Corroboration
Independent sources confirming the same thing.
Aingworth Concept
Full explanation
Corroboration happens when independent sources provide consistent evidence supporting the same understanding of a brand, claim, or fact.
The key qualifier is independence: two mentions that both trace back to the same original press release, or two pages on a brand's own site, do not corroborate each other, they are the same claim repeated. Corroboration requires sources that arrived at the same conclusion separately, without copying from or coordinating with each other.
It is the mechanism, not just a synonym for evidence in general: it describes the specific process by which a first-party claim accumulates independent confirmation over time, turning an assertion into something closer to an established fact a system can rely on without having to take the brand's word for it.
Why this matters
It is the mechanism behind Consensus Over Rankings. Saying something on your own website is a claim. The web confirming it independently is evidence.
Example
A brand claims on its own site to be a specialist in a particular niche. If three unrelated publications, a trade journal, a client's case study, an independent review, each separately describe the brand the same way, that is corroboration. If those three all turned out to be quoting the same original press release, it would not be.
Where this sits
Corroboration belongs to Retrieval, Evidence & Consensus, one of the seven layers of the Aingworth Glossary. Information exists, then it is retrieved, then sources are selected, then they corroborate one another, then consensus emerges. This is where Aingworth's Consensus Over Rankings thesis lives.
Continue with: Every Brand Has an AI Biography.
Related terms
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