What the AEO Evidence Actually Shows Right Now
Four AEO claims, four published tests, four verdicts. See where the AEO evidence holds, where it fails, and where it runs out entirely.
AEO
Schema Markup and AI Citation: What a Test Found
Schema markup AI citation advice has one controlled test behind it. Ahrefs tracked 1,885 pages and found no lift. See what schema is for.
llms.txt Has Adoption but No Evidence Behind It
Adoption is real, proof is not. See what the one llms.txt AI citation test measured, what it missed, and what to fix before the file.
Every AI Overview Statistic Contradicts the Next
AI Overview statistics disagree because each tracker picks a different keyword set and window. See how to read any prevalence figure.
Brand Mentions Beat Backlinks in Ahrefs’ Own Data
Brand mentions vs backlinks AI visibility, settled by Ahrefs' own 75,000-brand study. See the ranked signals and what they cannot prove.
Being Cited by AI Is Not the Same as Being Chosen
Being cited by AI vs being chosen are two outcomes, not one. See what the research measured and what to log so a citation count counts.
How Each AI Engine Picks Sources to Cite
ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini, and Claude don't pick sources alike. Compared on retrieval, evaluation, citation.
How to Get Cited by ChatGPT
It runs a live search, then pulls answer-first passages. The crawler to allow, and the signals that earn a ChatGPT citation.
How to Get Cited by Perplexity
It cites several sources per answer, so precision wins. What Perplexity rewards, and how to be the on-point passage it links.
How to Show Up in Google AI Overviews
Ranking is not citation. How the index feeds AI Overviews, and the passages it actually pulls, so you land in the box.
How to Get Mentioned by Google Gemini
It grounds answers in Search and differs from AI Overviews. How Gemini decides, and the signals that earn the mention.
How to Be the Source Claude Recommends
When Claude cites, and what its browsed answers reward. How to earn the recommendation, and check which engines cite you now.