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NewsJuly 9, 2026

2026 CiteLens Study: Google Ranking Barely Moves the Needle on ChatGPT Citations

New research from CiteLens reveals each AI search engine has its own citation "taste" — classic SEO still works on Google AI Mode & Perplexity, but barely matters on ChatGPT and Claude.

CiteLens ran hundreds of real buyer queries through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google's AI Mode, then compared the sources each engine cited against organic Google and Bing results for the same query. The results were surprising: these four AI engines are not citing "the same web."

Google AI Mode & Perplexity vs. ChatGPT: a wide gap

Roughly 90% of Google AI Mode and Perplexity citations came from Google's top-10 search results, while ChatGPT pulled only 30% of its citations from there. That means classic SEO ranking optimization matters far more on those two platforms than it does on ChatGPT.

Entity authority matters more on ChatGPT & Claude

What determines whether a brand gets cited by ChatGPT and Claude isn't ranking position — it's entity authority: how consistently and how widely a brand is mentioned across many different sources on the web, not just on the brand's own site.

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60% of domains cited by AI Overview aren't in Google's top 10

The same research also found that 60% of domains cited by AI Overview didn't appear anywhere in Google's organic top 10 for the same query. On top of that, 74% of AI answers cite YouTube and 84% cite forums or UGC content — meaning a brand that only optimizes its own website is leaving a lot of visibility on the table.

What this means for Indonesian brands

A GEO strategy can't use a single measuring stick across every platform. Brands need to diversify their presence — not just on their own website, but across forums, reviews, and video content — which is exactly what Fratello's GEO audit tracks separately per platform, rather than collapsing it into one generic score.

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ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude — Fratello audits all four automatically and shows you exactly where your brand stands.

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