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We’ve labored on over 50 AI analysis research at Ahrefs.
Practically each one was constructed to check a declare somebody within the trade (or Google) was repeating, with little proof to again it up.
Beneath is a end result of essentially the most attention-grabbing issues we’ve discovered, and the myths we’ve debunked, from latest AI search research, masking 15 million information factors.
1. AI Visibility: “Finest-Of” Listicles Enhance Your Competitor’s AI Visibility Extra Than Your Personal
Delusion busted: “Publish ‘finest’ checklist that includes your model and AI will advocate you.”
There’s nothing ChatGPT loves greater than a “Finest” suggestion checklist.
Throughout 750 ChatGPT prompts, Glen Allsopp discovered “finest X” blogs (e.g. “The ten finest search engine optimization instruments”) made up 43.8% of all web page varieties cited.
Unsurprisingly, many B2B corporations now write their very own lists and rank themselves first—however quotation isn’t suggestion.
The Knowledge
My colleague Mateusz Makosiewicz ran a managed experiment, publishing 34 self-promotional lists on 5 domains and monitoring 9,886 solutions throughout ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot.
Mateusz confirmed what SEOs like Lily Ray had suspected: AI will use your article because the supply of its data, however received’t truly point out your model in its reply, and should even enhance your competitor.
Right here’s an instance of that within the wild.
Mateusz wrote a listing selling our convention: Ahrefs Evolve. In 43% of solutions, AI really helpful a competitor’s occasion as a substitute.
Publishing a “finest” submit along with your title on prime isn’t sufficient to point out up in AI.
What To Do As a substitute
Outreach, assessment constructing, and word-of-mouth engineering (e.g. influencer campaigns, or “touring” a subject you need your model to turn into synonymous with) can get your model named throughout dozens of impartial and, hopefully, authoritative sources. That is what AI will deal with as credible long-term. We are able to’t say the identical for a single self-authored “better of” checklist.
2. llms.txt: Nothing Reads Your llms.txt File. 97% Get Zero Fetches.
Delusion busted: “You want an llms.txt file for AI visibility.”
In Could 2026 Google gave us contradicting recommendation: we ought to be auditing our llms.txt information, despite the fact that they’re not required for AI visibility.
We determined to examine the information ourselves.
The Knowledge
We studied the server logs and bot visitors of 137,000 websites utilizing Ahrefs Internet Analytics and Bot Analytics.
Total, 28% had printed an llms.txt file, however a staggering 97% of these information had been by no means learn. Not by bots, and never by people.
Of those who had been learn, 77% weren’t AI bots in any respect.
Most had been search engine optimization audit instruments, GEO platforms, and instruments constructed particularly to review llms.txt adoption.
It’s a tail-eating snake impact: SEOs write llms.txt information that solely get learn by the instruments constructed to review them.
What To Do As a substitute
Skip the llms.txt file.
Put that effort into making your current content material straightforward to crawl, parse, and cite.
3. Schema: Including Schema Markup Isn’t A Shortcut To Quotation In AI Search
Delusion busted: “Including schema markup to a web page will immediately boosts your AI citations.”
There’s been a pattern of “GEO specialists” attributing fast AI visibility wins to schema optimization.
The Knowledge
We put that to the take a look at, monitoring 1,885 pages that added JSON-LD schema, matched in opposition to 4,000 management pages, measuring quotation change earlier than and after.
After 30 days, we noticed no significant uplift on Google AI Mode or ChatGPT.
AI Overviews noticed a small, actual decline of 4.6%, however we couldn’t clearly pin that on schema, since each handled and management pages had been already declining beforehand.
Databases like Wikidata and Google’s Data Graph have absorbed schema for years.
Whether or not that construction truly shapes how AI fashions perceive entities remains to be an open query.
But when schema does feed AI understanding in any respect, it’s prone to be by means of the Data Graph; gradual and oblique, not a shortcut tactic.
What To Do As a substitute
Use schema markup to construct long-term entity associations, marking up Group and Particular person information with sameAs hyperlinks to Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Crunchbase, since a well-defined entity is what feeds Google’s Data Graph, and a clearer Data Graph entry is extra prone to form how AI fashions perceive you.
4. SERP Positions: Rating In Traditional Search Is Nonetheless How You Get Cited By ChatGPT
Delusion busted: “You don’t must rank in basic search to look in AI.”
By now, most of us know that AI platforms supply pages from conventional search, as a part of retrieval augmented era.
However how a lot of a job does search rating play in quotation?
We analyzed 1.4 million ChatGPT prompts to seek out out.
The Knowledge
We categorized each retrieved URL by ref_type and located that 88.46% of all citations got here from the overall search index; aka good quaint search rankings.
Specialised channels, like Reddit and YouTube, get pulled in at scale however hardly ever cited.
Rating nicely in basic search remains to be doing the heaviest lifting in ChatGPT’s quotation selections.
What To Do As a substitute
Spend money on the basic search engine optimization work that earns rating:
- Focusing on the fitting key phrases.
- Matching search intent.
- Fixing the technical points that maintain pages again.
5. Place 1: Rating On Web page 1 Doesn’t Assure AI Visibility
Delusion busted: “In the event you rank on web page one SERPs, you’re extra prone to be cited in AI.”
It’s straightforward to imagine a web page one rating provides you an outsized probability of AI visibility.
However our information means that’s not all the time the case.
The Knowledge
We analyzed 863K SERPs and 4M citations utilizing Model Radar, and located simply ~38% of URLs cited in AI Overviews additionally ranked within the prime 10 for a similar question, down from ~76% a 12 months earlier.
The remaining ranked additional down, or didn’t rank within the prime 100 in any respect.
Google has put extra emphasis on question fan-out, pulling citations from associated searches moderately than the person’s unique immediate. So, rankings do matter, however not for the key phrases you’d count on.
What To Do As a substitute
Construct out topical protection throughout a cluster of associated queries, not simply your one goal key phrase, so that you’re seen within the fan-out searches too.
6. Citations: AI Reshuffles Its Sources, However Not Its Opinion
Delusion busted: “AI solutions are too unstable to trace reliably.”
Some SEOs query whether or not AI monitoring is worth it, given how unpredictable AI solutions are.
It’s true, AI solutions shift always.
The Knowledge
Utilizing Model Radar, we tracked 43,000 key phrases over a month, checking every one’s AI Overview 16+ occasions. Wording modified 70% of the time, manufacturers shifted 46%, and cited sources swapped 45.5%.
However the substance beneath barely shifts: after we in contrast which means moderately than wording, AI Overviews scored 0.95 out of 1.
Google has settled on what the reply is, it simply retains re-sourcing and rewording it.
In the event you win the subject, not the precise phrasing, you’ll present up extra constantly.
Monitoring is what enables you to see that stability.
What To Do As a substitute
Observe your AI visibility by matter and sentiment over time, because the floor noise can typically conceal a extra steady sign beneath.
7. Visitors: AI Hasn’t Killed Search. Google Sends 190x Extra Visitors To Websites.
Delusion busted: “Google is useless. AI search has changed it.”
Yearly, SEOs take pleasure in writing Google’s obituary. It’s a cherished pastime that has taken off once more with the expansion of AI search.
However Google all the time lives to inform the story and, going by our information, it can do for a lot of extra years to come back.
The Knowledge
Patrick Stox discovered that ChatGPT will get solely ~12% of Google’s search quantity for the sorts of queries folks historically typed into Google, when you strip out non-search utilization like coding assist or translation.
Learning 76,000 websites hooked as much as Ahrefs Internet Analytics, we additionally found that Google sends 190x extra visitors than ChatGPT, making up almost 40% of website visitors, versus ChatGPT’s 0.21%.
AI hasn’t killed off Google, however it’s actually preventing for a slice of it.
What To Do As a substitute
Maintain prioritizing Google visitors in your technique.
It’s nonetheless your largest channel by a large margin, whilst you construct out AI visibility alongside it.
8. Clicks: AI Overviews Value You Extra Than Half Your Clicks (58%)
Delusion busted: “Showing in an AI Overview lifts your clicks.”
In Could 2024, Google Search head Liz Reid printed a weblog submit claiming that “the hyperlinks included in AI Overviews get extra clicks than if the web page had appeared as a standard internet itemizing for that question.”
That didn’t align with what the trade was experiencing, so Ryan Legislation determined to check Google’s claims.
The Knowledge
He studied the click-through charge (CTR) influence of AI Overviews again in early 2025, and located that AI Overviews diminished clicks to top-ranking content material by 34.5%.
Then, in 2026, when he seen the AI Overview influence appeared to be getting worse, he repeated his examine and located that the presence of an AI Overview lower position-1 CTR by 58%.
This discovering was sadly corroborated by Seer Interactive (CTR down >65.2%), Kevin Indig (>50%), and Authoritas (47.5%).
What To Do As a substitute
Diversify visitors sources and monitor your true click on loss immediately.
Don’t simply take Google’s claims at face worth.
9. Hyperlink Constructing: Backlinks Matter Much less Than Model Mentions for AI Visibility
Delusion busted: “Backlinks and area authority are a giant driver of AI visibility.”
Previous habits die laborious, and plenty of SEOs assume that backlinks and Area Ranking (DR) are the elements that matter most for AI visibility, since they work so nicely for search.
The Knowledge
We studied 75,000 manufacturers, correlating a stack of metrics in opposition to model mentions in ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews to grasp what drives AI visibility.
Surprisingly, DR confirmed a really weak correlation with model mentions in AI solutions (0.266–0.326), and the variety of backlinks barely registered (0.191–0.244).
What did correlate strongly was YouTube mentions (~0.737), forward of each different issue, with branded internet mentions shut behind (0.656–0.709).
Hyperlinks constructed your authority for Google. For AI, it’s whether or not persons are truly speaking about you on YouTube and throughout the online that counts.
What To Do As a substitute
Prioritize getting your model talked about in press protection and boards, and construct a presence on YouTube by means of your individual channel, creator partnerships, or sponsorships.
15 Million Knowledge Factors Later: Fundamentals Beat Hacks
By learning ~15 million information factors, we’ve discovered a ton about AI search, together with what works, what Google says works, and what’s simply LinkedIn hype.
At this level, chances are you’ll be pondering that AI search feels like plenty of work for little or no payoff.
However the ways that fail are principally the shortcuts, like the fast schema markup tag-ons or the self-crowned “finest” lists.
What works nicely are slower and extra acquainted methods; rating, incomes actual mentions, constructing content material out topically, and making a model folks speak about.
AI search isn’t unknowable, however it’s positively allergic to hacks.
Picture Credit
Featured Picture: Picture by Ahrefs. Used with permission.
In-Submit Pictures: Pictures by Ahrefs. Used with permission.
