This station was sponsored by Ahrefs. The opinions expressed successful this article are the sponsor’s own.
We’ve worked connected complete 50 AI investigation studies astatine Ahrefs.
Nearly each 1 was built to trial a declare personification successful the manufacture (or Google) was repeating, pinch small grounds to backmost it up.
Below is simply a culmination of the astir absorbing things we’ve learned, and the myths we’ve debunked, from caller AI hunt studies, covering 15 cardinal information points.
AI Search Truths We've Discovered
- 1. AI Visibility: "Best-Of" Listicles Boost Your Competitor's AI Visibility More Than Your Own
- 2. llms.txt: Nothing Reads Your llms.txt File. 97% Get Zero Fetches.
- 3. Schema: Adding Schema Markup Isn't A Shortcut To Citation In AI Search
- 4. SERP Positions: Ranking In Classic Search Is Still How You Get Cited By ChatGPT
- 5. Position 1: Ranking On Page 1 Doesn't Guarantee AI Visibility
- 6. Citations: AI Reshuffles Its Sources, But Not Its Opinion
- 7. Traffic: AI Hasn't Killed Search. Google Sends 190x More Traffic To Sites.
- 8. Clicks: AI Overviews Cost You More Than Half Your Clicks (58%)
- 9. Link Building: Backlinks Matter Less Than Brand Mentions for AI Visibility
- 10. 15 Million Data Points Later: Fundamentals Beat Hacks
1. AI Visibility: “Best-Of” Listicles Boost Your Competitor’s AI Visibility More Than Your Own
Myth busted: “Publish ‘best’ database featuring your marque and AI will urge you.”
There’s thing ChatGPT loves much than a “Best” proposal list.
Across 750 ChatGPT prompts, Glen Allsopp recovered “best X” blogs (e.g. “The 10 champion SEO tools”) made up 43.8% of each page types cited.
Unsurprisingly, galore B2B companies now constitute their ain lists and rank themselves first—but citation isn’t recommendation.
The Data
My workfellow Mateusz Makosiewicz ran a controlled experiment, publishing 34 self-promotional lists connected 5 domains and search 9,886 answers crossed ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot.
Mateusz confirmed what SEOs like Lily Ray had suspected: AI will usage your article arsenic the root of its information, but won’t really mention your marque successful its answer, and whitethorn moreover boost your competitor.
Here’s an illustration of that successful the wild.
Mateusz wrote a database promoting our conference: Ahrefs Evolve. In 43% of answers, AI recommended a competitor’s arena instead.
Publishing a “best” station pinch your sanction connected apical isn’t capable to show up successful AI.
What To Do Instead
Outreach, reappraisal building, and word-of-mouth engineering (e.g. influencer campaigns, aliases “touring” a taxable you want your marque to go synonymous with) tin get your marque named crossed dozens of independent and, hopefully, charismatic sources. This is what AI will dainty arsenic reliable long-term. We can’t opportunity the aforesaid for a azygous self-authored “best of” list.
2. llms.txt: Nothing Reads Your llms.txt File. 97% Get Zero Fetches.
Myth busted: “You request an llms.txt record for AI visibility.”
In May 2026 Google gave america contradicting advice: we should beryllium auditing our llms.txt files, moreover though they’re not required for AI visibility.
We decided to cheque the information ourselves.
The Data
We studied the server logs and bot postulation of 137,000 sites utilizing Ahrefs Web Analytics and Bot Analytics.
Overall, 28% had published an llms.txt file, but a staggering 97% of those files were ne'er read. Not by bots, and not by humans.
Of those that were read, 77% weren’t AI bots astatine all.
Most were SEO audit tools, GEO platforms, and devices built specifically to study llms.txt adoption.
It’s a tail-eating snake effect: SEOs constitute llms.txt files that only get publication by the devices built to study them.
What To Do Instead
Skip the llms.txt file.
Put that effort into making your existing contented easy to crawl, parse, and cite.
3. Schema: Adding Schema Markup Isn’t A Shortcut To Citation In AI Search
Myth busted: “Adding schema markup to a page will instantly boosts your AI citations.”
There’s been a inclination of “GEO experts” attributing speedy AI visibility wins to schema optimization.
The Data
We put that to the test, tracking 1,885 pages that added JSON-LD schema, matched against 4,000 power pages, measuring citation alteration earlier and after.
After 30 days, we saw no meaningful uplift connected Google AI Mode aliases ChatGPT.
AI Overviews saw a small, existent diminution of 4.6%, but we couldn’t intelligibly pin that connected schema, since some treated and power pages were already declining beforehand.
Databases for illustration Wikidata and Google’s Knowledge Graph person absorbed schema for years.
Whether that building really shapes really AI models understand entities is still an unfastened question.
But if schema does provender AI knowing astatine all, it’s apt to beryllium done the Knowledge Graph; slow and indirect, not a shortcut tactic.
What To Do Instead
Use schema markup to build long-term entity associations, marking up Organization and Person information pinch sameAs links to Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Crunchbase, since a well-defined entity is what feeds Google’s Knowledge Graph, and a clearer Knowledge Graph introduction is much apt to style really AI models understand you.
4. SERP Positions: Ranking In Classic Search Is Still How You Get Cited By ChatGPT
Myth busted: “You don’t request to rank successful classical hunt to look successful AI.”
By now, astir of america cognize that AI platforms root pages from accepted search, arsenic portion of retrieval augmented generation.
But really overmuch of a domiciled does hunt ranking play successful citation?
We analyzed 1.4 cardinal ChatGPT prompts to find out.
The Data
We categorized each retrieved URL by ref_type and recovered that 88.46% of each citations came from the wide search index; aka bully aged fashioned hunt rankings.
Specialized channels, for illustration Reddit and YouTube, get pulled successful astatine standard but seldom cited.
Ranking good successful classical hunt is still doing the heaviest lifting successful ChatGPT’s citation decisions.
What To Do Instead
Invest successful the classical SEO activity that earns ranking:
- Targeting the correct keywords.
- Matching hunt intent.
- Fixing the method issues that clasp pages back.
5. Position 1: Ranking On Page 1 Doesn’t Guarantee AI Visibility
Myth busted: “If you rank connected page 1 SERPs, you’re much apt to beryllium cited successful AI.”
It’s easy to presume a page 1 ranking gives you an outsized chance of AI visibility.
But our information suggests that’s not ever the case.
The Data
We analyzed 863K SERPs and 4M citations utilizing Brand Radar, and recovered conscionable ~38% of URLs cited successful AI Overviews besides classed successful the apical 10 for the aforesaid query, down from ~76% a twelvemonth earlier.
The remainder classed further down, aliases didn’t rank successful the apical 100 astatine all.
Google has put much accent connected query fan-out, pulling citations from related searches alternatively than the user’s original prompt. So, rankings do matter, but not for the keywords you’d expect.
What To Do Instead
Build retired topical coverage crossed a cluster of related queries, not conscionable your 1 target keyword, truthful you’re visible successful the fan-out searches too.
6. Citations: AI Reshuffles Its Sources, But Not Its Opinion
Myth busted: “AI answers are excessively volatile to way reliably.”
Some SEOs mobility whether AI search is worthwhile, fixed really unpredictable AI answers are.
It’s true, AI answers displacement constantly.
The Data
Using Brand Radar, we tracked 43,000 keywords complete a month, checking each one’s AI Overview 16+ times. Wording changed 70% of the time, brands shifted 46%, and cited sources swapped 45.5%.
But the constituent underneath hardly shifts: erstwhile we compared meaning alternatively than wording, AI Overviews scored 0.95 retired of 1.
Google has settled connected what the reply is, it conscionable keeps re-sourcing and rewording it.
If you triumph the topic, not the nonstop phrasing, you’ll show up much consistently.
Tracking is what lets you spot that stability.
What To Do Instead
Track your AI visibility by taxable and sentiment complete time, since the aboveground sound tin sometimes hide a much unchangeable awesome underneath.
7. Traffic: AI Hasn’t Killed Search. Google Sends 190x More Traffic To Sites.
Myth busted: “Google is dead. AI hunt has replaced it.”
Every year, SEOs bask penning Google’s obituary. It’s a cherished pastime that has taken disconnected again pinch the maturation of AI search.
But Google ever lives to show the communicative and, going by our data, it will do for galore much years to come.
The Data
Patrick Stox recovered that ChatGPT gets only ~12% of Google’s hunt volume for the kinds of queries group traditionally typed into Google, erstwhile you portion retired non-search usage for illustration coding thief aliases translation.
Studying 76,000 sites hooked up to Ahrefs Web Analytics, we besides discovered that Google sends 190x much postulation than ChatGPT, making up astir 40% of tract traffic, versus ChatGPT’s 0.21%.
AI hasn’t killed disconnected Google, but it’s surely fighting for a portion of it.
What To Do Instead
Keep prioritizing Google postulation successful your strategy.
It’s still your largest transmission by a wide margin, moreover arsenic you build retired AI visibility alongside it.
8. Clicks: AI Overviews Cost You More Than Half Your Clicks (58%)
Myth busted: “Appearing successful an AI Overview lifts your clicks.”
In May 2024, Google Search caput Liz Reid published a blog post claiming that “the links included successful AI Overviews get much clicks than if the page had appeared arsenic a accepted web listing for that query.”
Screenshot from Google Blog, May 2024.That didn’t align pinch what the manufacture was experiencing, truthful Ryan Law decided to trial Google’s claims.
The Data
He studied the click-through complaint (CTR) effect of AI Overviews backmost successful early 2025, and recovered that AI Overviews reduced clicks to top-ranking contented by 34.5%.
Then, successful 2026, erstwhile he noticed the AI Overview effect seemed to beryllium getting worse, he repeated his study and recovered that the beingness of an AI Overview trim position-1 CTR by 58%.
This uncovering was sadly corroborated by Seer Interactive (CTR down >65.2%), Kevin Indig (>50%), and Authoritas (47.5%).
What To Do Instead
Diversify postulation sources and way your true click loss directly.
Don’t conscionable return Google’s claims astatine look value.
9. Link Building: Backlinks Matter Less Than Brand Mentions for AI Visibility
Myth busted: “Backlinks and domain authority are a large driver of AI visibility.”
Old habits dice hard, and a batch of SEOs presume that backlinks and Domain Rating (DR) are the factors that matter astir for AI visibility, since they activity truthful good for search.
The Data
We studied 75,000 brands, correlating a stack of metrics against marque mentions successful ChatGPT, AI Mode, and AI Overviews to understand what drives AI visibility.
Surprisingly, DR showed a very anemic relationship pinch marque mentions successful AI answers (0.266–0.326), and the number of backlinks hardly registered (0.191–0.244).
What did correlate powerfully was YouTube mentions (~0.737), up of each different factor, pinch branded web mentions adjacent down (0.656–0.709).
Links built your authority for Google. For AI, it’s whether group are really talking astir you connected YouTube and crossed the web that counts.
What To Do Instead
Prioritize getting your marque mentioned successful property sum and forums, and build a beingness connected YouTube done your ain channel, creator partnerships, aliases sponsorships.
15 Million Data Points Later: Fundamentals Beat Hacks
By studying ~15 cardinal information points, we’ve learned a ton astir AI search, including what works, what Google says works, and what is conscionable LinkedIn hype.
At this point, you whitethorn beryllium reasoning that AI hunt sounds for illustration a batch of activity for very small payoff.
But the strategies that neglect are mostly the shortcuts, for illustration the speedy schema markup tag-ons aliases the self-crowned “best” lists.
What useful good are slower and much acquainted strategies; ranking, earning existent mentions, building contented retired topically, and creating a marque group talk about.
AI hunt isn’t unknowable, but it’s decidedly allergic to hacks.
Image Credits
Featured Image: Image by Ahrefs. Used pinch permission.
In-Post Images: Images by Ahrefs. Used pinch permission.
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