Perplexity quietly tightened its citation algorithm in mid-April 2026, favoring high-authority publishers and recently-updated content over high-volume blog content. We saw citation share for several Canadian SMB clients dip 20-30% over a 10-day window before partially recovering. Here's what changed and what to do.
Perplexity now appears to weight (1) update recency more heavily — pages updated within 90 days are preferred — and (2) referring-domain authority more heavily, especially for commercial queries. The 'pro' search mode also seems to expand the citation set from 5–7 sources to 10–15, which actually makes mid-tier publishers more findable.
High-authority Canadian publishers (CBC, The Globe and Mail, BetaKit, MobileSyrup) gained share. Aggregator content farms lost share. SMB sites that update content quarterly held; SMB sites that haven't been updated in 12+ months lost.
(1) Add an `updatedAt` schema field and a visible 'Last updated' date on every cornerstone page. (2) Refresh your top 10 pages this quarter — a real refresh, not a date bump. (3) Build at least one citation per quarter on a high-authority Canadian publication via expert commentary or original data.
Perplexity tightened citation algorithm mid-April 2026.
Pages updated within 90 days are preferred; high-authority referring domains weight more.
Refresh cornerstone pages quarterly and earn at least one high-authority citation per quarter.