ChatGPT Citations: Which Publishers ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews Cite
We counted how often ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews cite 1,496 publisher domains. What predicts AI citations, what cited sites cost, and the data to download.
1,496 publishers · US
Median AI citations by DR
Where recorded citations come from
Log scale. Measured 14 September to 29 September 2026.
ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews cite a small group of publishers very often and most others rarely. We counted the recorded citations of 1,496 publisher domains, every measurable publisher in the SEOlutions catalog, between 14 September to 29 September 2026. The median publisher had 307 citations; the mean was 6,246, pulled up by a few national brands. 28.4% of publishers passed 1,000 citations.
In brief:
- Citations are concentrated. The mean is about 20 times the median, and 7.3% of publishers have more than 10,000 citations.
- Google AI Overviews account for 86.8% of all recorded citations; ChatGPT for 13.2%.
- Domain Rating helps, but it is not a proxy. The median rises from 37 at DR 0–29 to 32,992 at DR 85–100, yet 8 of 148 publishers with DR 80+ had fewer than 100 citations.
- Price follows citations loosely. The rank correlation between a publisher’s lowest listed price and its citations is 0.33. Some of the most-cited publishers are among the cheaper ones per citation.
307
Median AI citations
per publisher domain; the mean is 6,246
28.4%
Above 1,000 citations
425 of 1,496 publishers
86.8%
From Google AI Overviews
of all recorded citations; ChatGPT 13.2%
0.57
Rank correlation with DR
traffic 0.42, price 0.33
Commercial context: SEOlutions sells guest posts, niche edits and PR placements on the publishers in this study. The citation counts come from a third-party data provider, and we publish the full data so you can check them.
What is a ChatGPT citation?
A ChatGPT citation is a source link that ChatGPT shows next to an answer when it searches the web. Google AI Overviews show source links the same way. A citation means the page was used as a source for the answer.
Three things are easy to mix up:
- Citation: your page or a page about you is listed as a source. This is what we measured, at the level of the publisher domain.
- Mention: the answer names your brand in its text, with or without a source link.
- Training data: what a model learned before release. It has no visible source and cannot be measured this way.
For link building and digital PR, citations matter because they show which publishers AI systems already trust as sources. An article on one of those sites has a better chance of being read by the systems that answer your buyers’ questions. It is a chance, not a promise.
How we measured AI citations
We used DataForSEO LLM Mentions, which records the source domains that appear in ChatGPT and Google AI Overview answers across a large set of prompts. Our settings:
- Market: United States, English.
- Platforms: ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, counted separately and added together.
- Unit: the publisher domain, sources only, subdomains excluded.
- Population: 1,496 of the 1,513 publisher domains with a priced offer in the SEOlutions catalog on 14 October 2026. The other 17 are new domains we have not measured yet.
- Period: 14 September to 29 September 2026. We did not re-run the measurement for this article.
A count is the number of recorded source mentions in the provider’s dataset. It is not the number of articles cited, not visitors and not mentions of your brand. Read the numbers as a comparison between publishers, not as traffic.
Which publishers do ChatGPT and AI Overviews cite most?
National news, business and entertainment brands lead. yahoo.com alone recorded 1,174,438 citations in the period.
| Publisher | Niche | DR | ChatGPT | AI Overviews | Total | Listed from |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| yahoo.com | Entertainment | 94 | 70,833 | 1,103,605 | 1,174,438 | $1,199 |
| forbes.com | Business | 94 | 146,592 | 664,348 | 810,940 | $6,999 |
| finance.yahoo.com | News & Media | 94 | 14,957 | 598,794 | 613,751 | $279 |
| usatoday.com | News & Media | 92 | 858 | 418,435 | 419,293 | $2,799 |
| reuters.com | News & Media | 92 | 132,782 | 154,132 | 286,914 | $1,199 |
| latimes.com | News & Media | 92 | 84,372 | 187,969 | 272,341 | $1,900 |
| variety.com | Entertainment | 91 | 6,071 | 250,942 | 257,013 | $12,500 |
| nypost.com | News & Media | 91 | 47,900 | 164,143 | 212,043 | $3,499 |
| hollywoodreporter.com | Entertainment | 90 | 3,365 | 208,190 | 211,555 | $13,995 |
| tasteofhome.com | Food & Drink | 85 | 97 | 202,549 | 202,646 | $1,950 |
| allure.com | Lifestyle | 86 | 32,707 | 164,448 | 197,155 | $3,999 |
| time.com | News & Media | 92 | 39,233 | 156,874 | 196,107 | $3,900 |
| apnews.com | News & Media | 91 | 68,025 | 101,512 | 169,537 | $299 |
| rollingstone.com | Entertainment | 90 | 1,677 | 149,194 | 150,871 | $14,500 |
| cntraveler.com | Travel | 88 | 19,116 | 113,921 | 133,037 | $4,550 |
Two patterns stand out. First, AI Overviews dominate the totals of most large publishers; Reuters and AP News are exceptions, with around 40% or more of their citations from ChatGPT. Second, the listed price of the most-cited publishers ranges from a few hundred dollars to five figures, so citation counts and prices do not move together.
Does Domain Rating predict AI citations?
Partly. Across all publishers, the rank correlation between Domain Rating and total citations is 0.57, and with estimated traffic 0.42. Both are moderate: higher-DR, higher-traffic publishers tend to be cited more, with many exceptions.
Use the explorer to compare segments. The share above 1,000 citations shows how often a publisher in that segment is a frequent source.
| Segment | Publishers | Median citations | Above 1,000 | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DR 0–29 | 26 | 37 | 0% | $209 |
| DR 30–49 | 283 | 68 | 8.8% | $259 |
| DR 50–69 | 571 | 169 | 10.3% | $499 |
| DR 70–84 | 544 | 1,044 | 50.4% | $799 |
| DR 85–100 | 72 | 32,992 | 93.1% | $2,499 |
Ahrefs Domain Rating as listed with the publisher’s guest post offer. Median price is the median of each publisher’s lowest listed price.
The jump at the top is large: 93.1% of DR 85–100 publishers pass 1,000 citations, with a median of 32,992. Below DR 70, frequent sources are the exception.
The exceptions matter more than the trend when you choose a publisher. 8 of the 148 publishers with DR 80 or higher had fewer than 100 citations. A high DR tells you about a site’s backlinks, not whether AI systems use it as a source. Check the citation count itself; the SEOlutions portal shows it on every offer.
Do ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews cite the same publishers?
Often, but not always. 1,206 publishers were cited by both platforms, 100 only by ChatGPT and 148 only by AI Overviews. The rank correlation between the two counts is 0.46, so a publisher that does well in one is only somewhat likely to do well in the other.
AI Overviews recorded 8.1M citations across these publishers and ChatGPT 1.2M. Part of that gap reflects how many answers each platform produces in the provider’s dataset, so compare publishers within a platform, not the platforms with each other.
If ChatGPT matters most to you, sort by ChatGPT citations rather than the total. These publishers get almost all of their citations from ChatGPT:
| Publisher | Niche | ChatGPT | AI Overviews | ChatGPT share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| skyryedesign.com | Architecture & Design | 1,316 | 0 | 100% |
| comedy.co.uk | Entertainment | 653 | 0 | 100% |
| kreafolk.com | Business | 520 | 1 | 99.8% |
| bonobology.com | Lifestyle | 531 | 3 | 99.4% |
| restaurantji.com | Food & Drink | 31,274 | 252 | 99.2% |
| neonmusic.co.uk | Entertainment | 590 | 22 | 96.4% |
| techbullion.com | Finance | 777 | 33 | 95.9% |
| estimatorflorida.com | Real Estate | 917 | 51 | 94.7% |
| tribuna.com | Sports | 707 | 45 | 94% |
| geeksaroundglobe.com | Entertainment | 466 | 46 | 91% |
Do more expensive placements get cited more?
On average, yes; publisher by publisher, not reliably. Publishers whose lowest listed price is under $250 have a median of 130 citations, and 9.5% of them pass 1,000. In the $2,500+ band the median is 19,757.
Price per 1,000 citations is a rough way to compare value. On that measure finance.yahoo.com stands out: listed from $279, it costs $0.45 per 1,000 recorded citations. Treat the measure as a filter, not a verdict. It ignores relevance, audience and what the article will say, and a citation of the domain is not a citation of your article.
Use the shortlist tool to find the most-cited publishers you can afford:
Shortlist tool
Most-cited publishers within your budget
Publishers with more than 1,000 recorded citations whose lowest listed price fits your budget. Past citations do not guarantee that a new article will be cited.
102 publishers match. Top 10:
| Publisher | DR | Citations | Listed from | Per 1,000 citations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| finance.yahoo.comNews & Media | 94 | 613,751 | $279 | $0.45 |
| apnews.comNews & Media | 91 | 169,537 | $299 | $1.76 |
| msn.comNews & Media | 92 | 53,950 | $379 | $7.03 |
| fashiongonerogue.comLifestyle | 71 | 11,100 | $299 | $26.94 |
| markets.businessinsider.comNews & Media | 90 | 10,372 | $219 | $21.11 |
| essentiallysports.comSports | 75 | 8,908 | $499 | $56.02 |
| sqlservercentral.comTechnology | 72 | 7,845 | $99 | $12.62 |
| re-thinkingthefuture.comArchitecture & Design | 75 | 7,821 | $175 | $22.38 |
| theidioms.comEducation | 74 | 7,643 | $329 | $43.05 |
| fightful.comSports | 60 | 6,962 | $325 | $46.68 |
How do you get cited by ChatGPT and AI Overviews?
Nobody can guarantee a citation, because each answer depends on the question and the sources the system retrieves for it. What you can control is whether trustworthy sources say the right things about you.
- Be covered where AI already looks. Choose relevant publishers with a strong citation record in your niche, not just high DR. The portal’s AI citations filter shows publishers above 1,000 citations.
- Give them something to cite. Original data, clear definitions and specific numbers are easier to quote than general claims. Dated, downloadable data like this study is one example.
- Describe your company the same way everywhere. A consistent name, category and description across your site, profiles and coverage helps AI systems describe you correctly.
- Match the question. Write for the questions your buyers ask AI assistants, such as comparisons, costs and “best” lists, and make sure the answer appears in the first paragraphs.
- Measure mentions separately. Track whether AI answers name your brand for your key questions, apart from rankings and referral traffic.
For how brand mentions and links work together, read brand mentions vs backlinks. For what placements cost, see the link building price index.
Download the data
The publisher-level data and the summary behind every table in this article are free to download and reuse under CC BY 4.0. Please cite “SEOlutions PR Portal, AI citations of publisher domains, measured 14 September to 29 September 2026” and link to this page. Each new measurement will be published as a separate dated version, so this one stays citable.
Limitations
- One market and two platforms. The counts cover United States, English and two AI systems. Other countries, languages and assistants such as Perplexity or Gemini can cite different sources.
- Domain level only. A publisher’s citations are spread across many articles. A new article on the same site starts with none.
- Provider sample. Counts depend on the prompts in the provider’s dataset and change over time.
- Our catalog only. The population is the publishers we list, not the whole web. Sites such as Wikipedia, Reddit or YouTube are often cited, but they are not in this study.
- Correlation, not cause. Domain Rating, traffic and price move with citations; none of them causes them.
Frequently asked questions
What is a ChatGPT citation?
A ChatGPT citation is a source link that ChatGPT shows next to an answer when it searches the web. Google AI Overviews show source links in the same way. A citation means the page was used as a source for that answer; it is different from a brand mention, which names your company in the answer text, and from training data, which has no visible source.
Which websites does ChatGPT cite most?
Across the 1,496 publisher domains we measured, yahoo.com had the most recorded citations (1,174,438), followed by large news, business and entertainment brands. The distribution is extremely uneven: the median publisher had 307 citations, while the mean was 6,246. Measured with DataForSEO LLM Mentions for United States, English, 14 September to 29 September 2026.
Does Domain Rating predict AI citations?
Partly. The rank correlation between Domain Rating and total AI citations was 0.57, and the median rose from 37 citations at DR 0–29 to 32,992 at DR 85–100. But 8 of the 148 publishers with DR 80 or higher had fewer than 100 citations, so check the citation count itself rather than inferring it from DR.
Do ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews cite the same sources?
Often, but not always. 1,206 publishers were cited by both, 100 only by ChatGPT and 148 only by AI Overviews, and the rank correlation between the two counts was 0.46. AI Overviews accounted for 86.8% of all recorded citations.
How do I get my brand cited by ChatGPT?
Be present on the sources it already uses. Earn or place coverage on relevant publishers with a strong citation record, publish original facts and data that others can quote, and describe your company the same way everywhere. Then track whether AI answers name your brand. No placement can guarantee a citation, because each answer depends on the question and the sources the system retrieves.
Can I use this data?
Yes. The publisher-level data and the summary are free to download and reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0). Cite “SEOlutions PR Portal, AI citations of publisher domains” with the measurement dates and link to this article.
See the data per offer
Choose publishers by their AI citations
Every offer in the SEOlutions portal shows its publisher’s ChatGPT and AI Overview citations next to DR, traffic and price. Requesting a quote is free.
About the author
Janis Thies
Co-founder & Managing Director, SEOlutions GmbH
Janis Thies co-founded SEOlutions GmbH and leads its strategic direction, link building methodology and service development. He writes SEOlutions Insights on publisher evaluation, guest posting, digital PR and search visibility.
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