What changed
New data from Ahrefs suggests ChatGPT is leaning more on original sources and less on sites that summarize them. Ahrefs tracked the 200 domains ChatGPT cited most often in U.S. answers, comparing 2.4 million answers from March with 3.8 million from September.
- PubMed rose from 64th to fourth place.
- WebMD fell from 18th to 79th.
- Britannica, Investopedia and the New York Post dropped out of the top 200 entirely.
- Most climbers were government health and research sites, regulators such as the CFPB and FTC, and hands-on product testers like RTINGS.
Reddit and Wikipedia also appeared in far fewer answers. Reddit’s share fell from 19.1% of U.S. answers to 2.3%, and Wikipedia’s went from 14.1% to 2.9%, though both remain among the most-cited domains.
Ahrefs also found that only 14.4% of 66.6 million free, logged-out responses from August and September involved a web search. When ChatGPT did run targeted searches within a single site on the most-searched domains, 75.9% went to brand websites.
Why it matters
If your visibility in AI answers depends on general explainer content, that approach may be losing value. ChatGPT appears to reward pages that offer something only the source can provide, such as original research, real product testing or first-party product details.
The strong showing of brand sites in targeted searches is a good sign for businesses. Your own website can be the source ChatGPT turns to when it needs facts about your products or services. Keep in mind that Ahrefs’ citation ranks do not measure traffic, and the data reflects a snapshot that could change with future model updates.
What to do
- Check your citations. Ask ChatGPT questions about your core topics and note whether it cites your pages or other sources.
- Publish what only you can. Share original data, hands-on testing results, case studies and detailed product information.
- Strengthen your product pages. Make specs, pricing details and support content accurate, complete and easy to find on your own site.
- Rethink thin explainers. Add firsthand expertise or unique insight to general how-to content rather than restating what is available elsewhere.
- Recheck after updates. Review which sources ChatGPT cites for your key topics whenever OpenAI releases a new model.
Source: ChatGPT’s Most-Cited Sites Tilt Toward Primary Sources, Data Shows, Search Engine Journal. This brief sums up their reporting; all credit for the original goes to them.
