Where do AIs go to find their answers? (40,000 searches analyzed)

ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity: which sources do they cite most? xfunnel analyzed 40,000 responses and 250,000 citations to understand which content is favored by these AI search engines. Discover their results !

Methodology for analyzing AI citations

For this study, xfunnel scrutinized 40,000 responses generated by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini (Google's chatbot), totaling 250,000 unique outgoing links. Each citation was categorized according to several criteria:

• Source type (owned, competitor, earned, UGC),
• Domain authority (20-point ranges),
• Stage of the buying journey (problem exploration, education about solutions, comparison, final search, evaluation).

On average, Perplexity generates 6.61 citations per response, Gemini 6.1 and ChatGPT only 2.62. But beyond volume, what insights can we draw about the nature of the cited sources?

Domain authority, a determining factor

First finding: while very low authority sites (DA 0-19) are rarely mentioned, those with a DA above 20 appear much more regularly. The strongest domains (DA 80-100) account for 31.53% of citations, followed by DA 40-59 (26.32%) :

Moral: once a site exceeds a certain authority threshold, it has a good chance of being picked up by AIs. This includes many affiliate sites and blogs, which seem to carry significant weight in the formation of answers. You said "Google killer"?

Media and User-Generated Content in pole position

Another key finding: citations fromearned media, namely press, third-party sites and affiliates, largely dominate the results of ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. Right behind, user-generated content (reviews, forums…) also regularly appears in the answers.

Again, brand-owned sources remain a minority. AIs clearly favor a plurality of external viewpoints, even if that means highlighting comparison sites or customer feedback.

Sources suited to the buyer's journey

xfunnel also analyzed the distribution of citations according to key stages of the customer journey. And the least one can say is that AIs adapt their sources based on the user's need:

• In the ... phaseexploration, they rely heavily on earned media to provide a third-party perspective.
• At the time of comparing solutions, the share of UGC increases to include testimonials and reviews.
• Finally, during the final research and evaluation, brand and competitor-owned sites are given greater prominence.

In short, from top to bottom of the funnel, conversational engines subtly adjust the types of sources to best match user expectations. Impressive, isn't it?

Specifics of the tech giants

Final focus on companies with more than 50,000 employees. While media citations remain predominant across all segments, we note that the larger the company, the more AIs tend to cite its own site.

Logical: the web giants generally have domains with high authority, which algorithms consider as references in their field. A definite advantage for these players, who already dominate the top of Google's SERPs…

Reddit and YouTube, kings of UGC

Finally, xfunnel wanted to know where UGC content came from when it was mentioned by AIs. Unsurprisingly, Reddit and YouTube top the list, alongside GitHub and Medium.

But each engine has its own preferences: Perplexity heavily favors YouTube and PeerSpot, while Gemini emphasizes Medium and Reddit. ChatGPT, for its part, frequently cites LinkedIn, G2 and Gartner Peer Reviews.

Moral of the story? AIs have their own habits. And beware of hasty generalizations about “AI”: behind that catch‑all term lie distinct models and indexing strategies. It remains to be seen how these competitors to Google will evolve in the coming months… To be continued!

Thanks to David Eichholtzer for spotting the info.

The article “Where do AIs go to find their answers? (40,000 searches analyzed)” was published on the site Abondance.