Vendor reportSemrush, 21 Jul 2025

When ChatGPT cites webpages, nearly 90% rank below 21st in Google

Citation & visibility tracking

90%

Share of pages ChatGPT cites that rank below position 21 in Google

Reader Note:: Perplexity and Google’s LLMs show similar but unspecified trends.
Evidence:: Observed behaviour
Vendor interest:: High — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
Sample:: Based on over 500 high-value digital marketing and SEO-related topics and subtopics, translated into specific search terms and prompts, tested across Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Exact geographic scope and per-model query counts are not disclosed.

Good for

Comparing yourself against a similar segment, and choosing what to test next.

Not for

Saying that one thing caused another, or predicting what you would get.
The source never says when this data was collected. It could be considerably older than the publication date suggests.
This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
The source says how much it looked at, but not how any of it was chosen.

12%

of links cited by AI assistants show up in Google's top 10 search results for the same prompt

80%

of AI assistant citations do not rank anywhere in Google for the original query

70% of the time, when a brand's own listicle is cited in a Google AI Overview, the brand is left out and the listicle is used to recommend a competitor instead

Outcomes when brands' own listicles are cited by Google AI Overviews (184 listicles)
Outcome when listicle was cited	Number of listicles	Share of listicles (%)
Brand left out, and its listicle was used to recommend a competitor	129	70%
Brand left out, and the listicle wasn't cited next to any brand's recommendation	21	11%
Brand recommended, but its listicle was used to recommend a competitor	8	4%
Brand recommended, and its listicle backed both the brand and competitors	12	7%
Brand recommended, and its listicle backed only the brand itself	6	3%

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drop in Reddit's citation share in ChatGPT Search between July 18–August 7 and August 14–17, 2026

Only about 17% of AI Overview citations also rank in the organic top 10, while just over half are somewhere in the top 100.

Share of AI Overview citations also ranking in organic top 10 vs top 100 by month
Month	Sources cited in AIO also ranking in organic top 10 (%)	Sources cited in AIO ranking somewhere in top 100 (%)
Feb 2025	16.4%	48.7%
Mar 2025	16.1%	49.7%
Apr 2025	16.9%	50.8%
May 2025	16.1%	51%
Jun 2025	16.8%	52.8%

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In Fashion, AI use cases are spread evenly, with personal styling slightly ahead

When ChatGPT cites webpages, nearly 90% rank below 21st in Google

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