How Citadex Picks Hero Images for Your Posts

Three sources, one picker

Every article generated in Content Studio gets a hero image selection step. Citadex pulls candidate images from three independent sources:

1. Unsplash — high-quality stock photography, fetched via the Unsplash API
2. Brand-indexed images — images Citadex auto-harvested from your own site during Knowledge Base crawls
3. Manual upload — any image you upload from your computer

The picker shows all three in a single grid. You pick one, it becomes the article's hero image and is used in the Open Graph and Twitter card meta tags when the article is published.

Unsplash candidates

Citadex queries Unsplash using keywords derived from your article's title and tags. Results are filtered for landscape orientation and minimum resolution suitable for hero use.

Important — Unsplash images require attribution. Citadex automatically inserts the photographer credit (with link back to the Unsplash photo page) below the image when the article is rendered. Do not remove this attribution; it's a condition of Unsplash's free use license.

The Unsplash slot returns up to 9 candidates. If your article topic is unusual or very niche, you may see fewer results — that's normal.

Brand-indexed candidates

When you crawl your own site URLs into the Brand Knowledge Base, Citadex extracts and stores image URLs found on those pages. The Hero Image Picker shows these as candidates when generating an article.

Why this matters: using your own brand photography or product screenshots in articles is much stronger for AEO than generic stock — AI engines associate the image with your brand entity, not with Unsplash. Always prefer a brand image when one fits the topic.

If this slot is empty:

• You haven't crawled any site URLs into the KB yet (only uploaded PDFs/docs — those don't yield images)
• Your site uses image formats Citadex doesn't index (currently we index JPG, PNG, WebP — not SVG icons or background CSS images)
• Your site blocks our crawler (check robots.txt for CitadexBot)

See Brand Knowledge Base Guide for how to add site URLs.

Manual upload

If neither source has the right image, click Upload and provide your own. Constraints:

• Max 5 MB
• Recommended dimensions 1200×630 (matches Open Graph aspect ratio)
• Formats: JPG, PNG, WebP

Uploaded images are stored alongside the article and re-used if you republish or update it.

Skipping the hero image

You can skip image selection entirely and publish without one. The article will use the Citadex default OG image as the social fallback. This is fine for purely text-driven posts but reduces engagement when shared on LinkedIn or X.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why does my Unsplash slot return zero results?

Either your article topic doesn't match common Unsplash keywords, or the Unsplash API is rate-limited (rare). Try editing the article tags to use more general terms and re-open the picker.

Q: Can I disable Unsplash entirely and only use my own images?

Not currently. Just ignore the Unsplash slot and pick from your brand-indexed or uploaded options.

Q: An image I uploaded last week isn't showing up anymore.

Uploaded images are tied to the article they were uploaded for. If you start a new article, you'll need to upload it again. Use the brand image route instead if you want a reusable image — add it to your site or KB.

Q: Will Citadex generate AI images?

Not yet — we considered it but generated images currently underperform real photography in AEO testing. We'll revisit when AI image quality and provenance trust catches up.