According to Ahrefs data, PubMed moved up from 64th to fourth location among the domains ChatGPT most frequently cited in U.S. answers from March to September, during WebMD dropped from 18th to 79th.
Most of the climbers in the report’s diagram were authorities health and investigation sites, regulators, and hands-on merchandise testers. Health and backing explainers misplaced ground, and Britannica, Investopedia, and the New York Post cut out of the top 200. Ahrefs writes that ChatGPT “seems to be prioritizing first sources complete sites that summarize them.”
The study additionally looked at how frequently ChatGPT searches happen. Out of 66.6 myriad free, logged-out responses from August and September, 14.4% engaged operating a web search.
Which Sites Climbed And Which Fell
Ahrefs looked at the 200 domains most frequently cited by ChatGPT in U.S. answers, according to 2.4 myriad answers in March and 3.8 myriad in September.
The business describes WebMD and Verywell Health as health sites that summarize research, and it groups Healthline and Investopedia alongside them as health and backing explainers. Its longer catalog of sites cited additional adds regulators specified as the CFPB and FTC, affirmative assistance pages from Google and Microsoft.
The company’s tracking scheme adds prompts complete time, definition that a alter in position power be because of new questions fairly than a alter in what ChatGPT cites. To check, they compared about 25,000 prompts that appeared among their 150,000 highest-volume prompts in the two March and September. They noted that all location on the diagram moved in the identical direction for those prompts.
Reddit And Wikipedia Appear In Fewer Answers
Reddit was cited in 19.1% of U.S. ChatGPT answers in March and 2.3% in September, in Ahrefs’ data. Wikipedia went from 14.1% to 2.9% complete the identical period. The business says the two are motionless among ChatGPT’s most-cited domains.
I discussed a Reddit autumn in August, noting that Promptwatch showed reddit.com’s portion of ChatGPT Search citations decreased from an average of 3.83% in delayed July and first August to 0.52% in mid-August. Ahrefs measures the portion of answers citing Reddit, which is a distinct way of looking at it.
In Ahrefs’ distinct worldwide sample, reddit.com was motionless the ninth domain ChatGPT searched most frequently alongside site: searches, which bounds a hunt to one website.
Most Free Answers Didn’t Search The Web
Out of the 66.6 myriad free, logged-out GPT-5.6 Luna responses in Ahrefs’ fan-out sample, 14.4% included a web search. This data covers August and September throughout all countries. On average, responses that engaged searching had about 1.6 fan-out queries, which are backdrop searches ChatGPT performs before giving an answer.
OpenAI’s help page mentions that ChatGPT power hunt the web on its own if a inquiry would advantage from current information.
Of the 15 myriad fan-outs, 6.8% were site: searches, dispersed throughout 116,000 domains. Among these site: searches targeting the approximately 160 most-searched domains, 75.9% went to brand sites, which the study defines as business websites like apple.com or ikea.com.
The study highlights that another studies have observed much higher fan-outs per prompt. For example, Nectiv established an average of 7.61 fan-outs per immediate from concerning 4,000 prompts processed through GPT-5.6 Sol via the API. Compared to this, the fig of 1.6 lone considers responses that affect searching. Since the two samples differ in models, prompts, and gathering methods, their numbers aren’t immediately comparable. The business explains that its broad prompts are drawn from hunt petition throughout all topic and country, which accounts for part of the gap. They additionally note that using the assistance for liberated and without logging in results in small searches compared to paid or reasoning models.
Why This Matters
Health and backing explainer sites akin Healthline, WebMD, and Investopedia saw a decrease in citation position in this data. Meanwhile, PubMed, the FDA, and evaluation sites akin RTINGS risen their rank. Ahrefs suggests focusing on pages that lone you can create, specified as first research, hands-on testing, and your own merchandise information.
Ahrefs’ citation ranks don’t measure traffic. Checking how frequently ChatGPT cites your own pages for your center topics, and which sources it cites instead, volition display whether this applies to you.
Looking Ahead
According to Ahrefs, their fan-out data comes from a snapshot of a sole example taken between August and September. They additionally note that these patterns could alter in forthcoming updates. If explainer pages are your chief way to get visibility, it’s a fine idea to inspect which sources ChatGPT cites for your crucial topics whenever OpenAI updates its model.
Featured Image: Tetiana Yurchenko/Shutterstock. OpenAI wordmark: OpenAI.
