The phrase primary source is sometimes used as if one type of document is always superior to every other type. In practice, the best source depends on the question. A professional is a primary source for describing work personally performed. A state licensing board is a primary source for the current license status it administers. An organization is a primary source for its normal office hours. A regulator is a primary source for its own rule or guidance.
The important discipline is matching source authority to claim scope. A testimonial can establish that someone reports an experience, but it cannot automatically establish a scientific proposition. An NPI can identify a health-care provider in the NPPES system, but CMS makes clear that possession of an NPI does not establish licensure or credentialing. A company press release can document what the company announced, but it may not independently prove every factual implication of the announcement.
Dominator therefore treats source selection as part of the research. The question is not merely whether a URL exists. The question is whether the source is competent to establish the exact fact being published. For credential verification, that may mean an issuing organization or regulator. For a practitioner’s original method, the practitioner’s interview and supporting work product may be primary evidence. For a search feature, official search-engine documentation is preferable to a third-party prediction.
Secondary sources can still be valuable. They can identify questions, provide context, summarize a field, or point toward primary evidence. They become risky when a summary is repeated as if it were the underlying authority.
A primary-source habit makes the public record more resilient because the evidence chain can be inspected. When a source changes, the affected claims can be revisited rather than silently inheriting stale information.