Pages cited by AI often answered a question in their first lines, though the gap was smaller against pages AI pulled up but didn’t cite.
TJ Robertson’s analysis of 193,507 AI answers from ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and AI Overviews includes two rounds of blind page ratings. In both rounds, cited pages opened with a direct answer to the question more often than the pages they were compared with.
When the same AI answers pulled up pages, there was a difference in how often these pages began with a direct answer when they were cited (23%) versus those that were not cited (14%). There also was a difference when comparing cited pages with Google Top-10 pages the AI never pulled up (20% vs. 5%).
The results are based on data collected by Robertson’s company TJ Digital, which sells both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services and Generative Engine Optimization services. The data is gathered through purchasing questions tracked by Robertson's company for its clients. Robertson states he views his findings as showing associations rather than any specific page traits causing a citation.
The total number of responses (answers) within the study's analysis was 193,507. Those responses addressed 4,167 questions that did not reference a specific company or product name. The questions covered 78 different client companies representing nine different business models. Responses were captured over the course of eight "snapshots" on an individual week basis during the time frame of August 27 through October 21, 2026, plus repeat runs using the same questions.
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