You’re regularly publishing new content on your site. Or maybe you’re updating existing pages to include new information. Possibly both.
Either way, you’re wondering: When will your content appear in AI search results?
We ran an experiment to find out.
Methodology
We published 81 test pages on the Semrush blog. For context, our blog has an Authority Score of 84 (meaning it has strong overall quality and SEO strength) and a history of publishing content around SEO that ranks well. This means these pages were given the best possible conditions to succeed.
All the pages we published went live in September and were FAQ-style content, covering topics relevant to AI optimization and SEO.
We then tracked when ChatGPT search and Google's AI Mode cited our pages in their responses over 30 days using our own Enterprise AIO tool. This tool allowed us to submit queries related to our pages, track AI responses daily, and spot when our content appeared as a cited source.
Key Takeaways
Here are the biggest patterns we observed across a 30-day time period:
- Google AI Mode picked up content significantly faster. Within 24 hours of publishing, 29 pages (36%) got cited in Google AI Mode. By comparison, ChatGPT search cited only eight pages (8%) in the same time frame—more than three times slower.
- Google AI Mode citations are quite volatile. On day one, 29 pages were cited. By day six, that number reached 48 pages, then fluctuated in the days that followed before eventually going down to just 21 pages by day 30.
- ChatGPT search takes longer to cite content, but once it does, those citations remain—and new pages are added over time. ChatGPT cited eight pages on day one, 14 pages after a week, 28 pages after two weeks, and 34 pages (42%) by day 30.
- Neither platform cited a large chunk of our pages. Even after 30 days, the highest number of pages that were cited on a given day was 48 for Google AI Mode and 34 for ChatGPT search—representing 59% and 42% of our test content, respectively. Many pages never became sources.
Google AI Mode
Google was by far the faster platform to cite our content. As soon as we published new pages, Google’s AI Mode began picking them up remarkably quickly.
Here’s how fast our test pages started getting cited in AI Mode:
- A total of 29 out of 81 pages (36%) got cited the day after publication
- That number jumped to 36 (44%) on the second day
- By day seven, 45 pages (56%) had been cited
- Citations began fluctuating starting on day seven. And by day 14, the number of pages being cited had dropped to 39 (48%)
- By day 30, only 21 pages (26%) were still being cited (a more than 50% reduction from the peak)
The fast initial pickup could be because of the fact that our domain authority is quite strong. Most SEOs agree that the factors domain authority summarizes are important for traditional search rankings—and it seems Google may factor these same attributes in when selecting sources for AI Mode as well.
In other words, if your domain authority is high (like ours), you may have a better shot at getting cited quickly by Google AI Mode—at least based on this study.
Another thing to note is citations in Google AI Mode can fluctuate a lot. Google seems to be continuously re-evaluating which sources to cite, adding and removing pages from its pool of trusted sources on an almost daily basis. What gets cited one week might not be cited the next.
In our data, we saw pages that were cited drop off suddenly after a while. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do to control this.
ChatGPT Search
ChatGPT search was much slower to start citing our content, but once it did, the pages that got cited retained those citations and other pages began appearing as well.
Here's the timeline for how our pages got cited in ChatGPT Search:
- Eight of 81 pages (10%) got cited immediately the day after publication
- That number grew to 10 pages (12%) on day two
- By day seven, 14 pages (17%) had been cited
- Two weeks after publication, 28 pages (35%) were being cited
- By day 30, 34 pages (42%) were being cited
The pattern we saw with ChatGPT search was completely different from Google. While Google began citing a lot of our pages almost immediately, ChatGPT took longer.
Once ChatGPT cited pages, they generally remained there. And over time, new pages were added, which is why the total number grew from eight pages on day one to 34 pages by day 30.
If you're optimizing for ChartGPT search, be patient. The citations may come slower, but they're more likely to be long-lasting.
Monitor Your AI Visibility
If your team is investing time and effort to increase AI visibility, you need a reliable way to know whether those efforts are paying off.
That's where Semrush comes in—with two powerful solutions to help you track your AI visibility:
- AI Visibility Toolkit: Best for small- to medium-sized businesses looking to track their presence in AI search engines and chatbots
- Enterprise AIO: Designed for larger organizations looking to monitor visibility across all major AI platforms
Don't wait weeks wondering if your content is getting picked up. Start tracking your AI visibility today.
