Content VisibilityFebruary 2026

AI Search Content Visibility Report February 2026

Based on an analysis of 200m+ citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, and Claude, we examined the content structures and formats most frequently cited by generative search engines.

Top 10 Authority Domains Cited by AI

Citation share across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude (Feb 2026)

youtube.com
3.10%
g2.com
1.38%
medium.com
0.63%
appsumo.com
0.60%
zapier.com
0.50%
reddit.com
0.42%
techradar.com
0.34%
capterra.com
0.28%
slashdot.org
0.24%
sourceforge.net
0.16%

Percentages show share of domain citations February 2026.

Content Preferences by AI Engine

Citation patterns vary significantly by model.This report tracks the distribution of citation formats over the past 30 days to identify which content structures appear most frequently in AI responses.

Content type	Gemini	Perplexity	Claude	OpenAI
Listicle	42.5%	46.8%	42%	33.1%
Blog / Guide	26.6%	23.5%	28.6%	29.4%
Homepage / Brand	13.6%	5.8%	8%	1.7%
Comparison	9.2%	14.3%	12.1%	10.3%
Product Page	0.4%	0.4%	2.3%	20.1%
Review / Aggregator	1.1%	2%	3.4%	2.1%
Guide / Resource	3%	2.9%	3.5%	3.4%

February 2026. Percentages represent share of citations within each engine, not across engines.

Comparison pages are the highest-ROI content format

Listicles are the most cited content format, accounting for more than 1 in 3 AI citations. Blog posts and guides follow at 22%. Together these two formats account for more than half of all AI citations

Listicle
35.6%
Blog / Guide
22.0%
Other
19.7%
Comparison
9.3%
Homepage / Brand
8.0%
Video
3.1%
Review / Aggregator
1.1%
Guide / Resource
0.8%
Product Page
0.4%

Citation share = percentage of all tracked citations attributed to that content format.

Freshness matters more than you think

Nearly two-thirds of the most cited pages were published within the last 6 months. However, pages on high authority domains continued to earn citations regardless of age, proving that domain trust can override recency.

0–3 months
37%
3–6 months
25%
6–12 months
22%
1–2 years
9%
2+ years
9%

What Drives Brand Mentions?

Third-party sites account for 44% of brand-related citations, compared to less than 10% from brand-owned websites

91%

of brand mention citations came from external content

came from your own website

Breakdown of external citations

Third-party Reviews
44%
YouTube / Video
28%
Review Aggregators
15%
Own Website(your content)
9%
Deals / Discount Sites
3%
Other
1%

External content includes third-party reviews, video, and aggregator listings not published on your own domain.

How Lantern collects this data

Lantern collects millions of prompt responses, citations, and click data from the actual user interfaces of major AI platforms. This gives us one of the largest and most authentic datasets on how AI search engines cite sources and surface brands.

Prompt monitoring

Data collected directly from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and AI Overviews, the same results users see daily.

200m+ data points

Over 200 million analyzed citations, prompts, and responses one of the largest AI search datasets available.

Aggregated and public

Published freely for the GEO and AI search community. All reports are based on aggregated, non-identifiable trends.