AI engine guides

How each AI engine decides what to recommend

Every AI engine recommends companies differently. Drawing on published industry analyses of AI search citations and how each engine retrieves information, these guides show you what drives recommendations on each engine, and how to get cited.

Heavy Moderate Light | Measured we counted it Vendor the engine's own docs say it Our read our judgement, not a count | Hover a cell for the reasoning and the sample

**Which engine leans on which channel** Six channels, six engines, and every cell says where its position came from: 10 counted from our own scans and research, 5 stated by the engine's own documentation, 21 our read of how the engine behaves. Sources below. Last reviewed 2026-08-26.
Channel	ChatGPT	Claude	Perplexity	Gemini	Google AI Mode	Microsoft Copilot
Your own site Schema, answer pages, llms.txt, crawlability	Heavy Vendor	Heavy Vendor	Heavy Measured	Heavy Our read	Heavy Vendor	Heavy Our read
Reviews and directories G2, Clutch, Capterra, Trustpilot, Google Business	Moderate Our read	Light Measured	Heavy Our read	Moderate Our read	Moderate Measured	Moderate Measured
Reddit and forums Unpaid opinion, where buyers go for the unvarnished view	Light Our read	Light Measured	Heavy Our read	Moderate Our read	Heavy Measured	Moderate Measured
Video YouTube. Only counts once there is a transcript	Moderate Our read	Light Our read	Moderate Our read	Heavy Our read	Heavy Measured	Light Measured
Newsletters LinkedIn, Substack, Beehiiv. Published under a named person	Moderate Our read	Light Our read	Moderate Our read	Heavy Our read	Heavy Measured	Light Our read
News and PR Earned coverage, wire pickup, journalist mentions	Heavy Vendor	Heavy Vendor	Heavy Our read	Moderate Our read	Moderate Our read	Moderate Our read

Your own site. Your own site counts most for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot.

Reviews and directories. Reviews and directories counts most for Perplexity. It is a light signal for Claude.

Reddit and forums. Reddit and forums counts most for Perplexity, Google AI Mode. It is a light signal for ChatGPT, Claude.

Video. Video counts most for Gemini, Google AI Mode. It is a light signal for Claude, Microsoft Copilot.

Newsletters. Newsletters counts most for Gemini, Google AI Mode. It is a light signal for Claude, Microsoft Copilot.

News and PR. News and PR counts most for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity.

Where this comes from

OpenAI: publishers and developers FAQ States that a site must allow OAI-SearchBot to be eligible for ChatGPT search at all.
OpenAI: introducing ChatGPT search The named publisher partnerships behind the news and PR row.
Anthropic: web search tool documentation Citations are always enabled, and Claude only searches when a question needs current information.
Google Search Central: AI features and your website AI Overviews and AI Mode report inside the ordinary Search Console Performance report.
Search Console Help: impressions, position and clicks How AI Mode counts a click, and why a follow-up question is treated as a new query.
Dan Petrovic: citation mining of OpenAI grounding metadata Reddit retrieved in 76 percent of OpenAI searches and selected 0.61 percent of the time.
Our production scan database, read 12 August 2026 46 completed reports, 34 brands, 419 buying questions, 2,421 answered buying cells. Where the per-engine mention rates come from.
Our 15-region managed services study 743 records, 566 named by an engine, and the per-engine corroboration rates.
What our crawler finds on real sites 39 readable crawls: 38 with no llms.txt, 26 with no FAQ schema, 16 with no Organization schema.
How we check an AI visibility report The method behind every first-party number on this page, including what it cannot show.