Most advice on ranking in AI Overviews is speculative, so we’ve analyzed millions of AI Overview responses and citations to find out what actually works. Our own study shows that AI Overviews have caused click-through rate drops of 34.5%, with new research from Seer Interactive reporting drops as high as 61%. And research from Pew…
Google’s AI Mode generates responses that are 4x longer than AI Overviews (on average). When we first noticed this, the natural assumption was that AI Mode simply expands on the same information, taking AI Overview’s concise answer and adding more detail from the same sources. But after analyzing 730,000 response pairs, we found something unexpected:…
Across 60,000+ websites we track daily analytics for, ChatGPT sends 8-9x the referral traffic of the next leading AI-first platform, Perplexity. Just last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that more than 800 million people use the platform each week. But what does it take to get mentioned and cited in its responses? Our latest research…
AI may be killing search clicks, but we’re still reading content—especially the good stuff. At Ahrefs, we read and share articles all the time for marketing and SEO inspiration. In fact, SQ puts a call-out for the best SEO blogs every week, to curate the Ahrefs’ Digest. Below you’ll find our favorites–the blogs that have made…
In October 2025, ChatGPT had more than 800 million weekly users; yet, most analytics dashboards don’t even list it as a traffic source. There’s an entirely new visitor channel quietly growing faster than Google Search, sending higher-intent users who convert at rates that make traditional search traffic look inefficient. In this guide, you’ll learn what…
If a competitor is mentioned more often, cited more frequently, or framed more favorably in AI answers, they win attention and trust before searchers even know you exist. This guide shows you how to run an AI search competitor analysis that reveals: Which brands in your industry dominate AI search today Where your competitors earn visibility,…
Get the week’s best marketing content If you’re looking for fresh numbers you can paste into a slide and defend in your budget/RFP meetings, this is the place for you. We pulled the most recent, B2B-specific stats and organized them around the most important things in B2B SEO. Below are the stats worth citing in 2025. Ruler Analytics)…
AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity have become the new places people turn to for answers—handling millions of prompts every day. Even Google now uses AI to generate summaries right at the top of search results. This shift happened fast. In 2024, AI Overviews rolled out to millions of searches, ChatGPT climbed into the…
Last year’s Ahrefs Evolve was about surviving Google’s updates. This year? We barely talked about algorithms. Instead, more than 500 marketers gathered and listened raptly as every conversation circled back to AI. Its meteoric impact on our industry cannot be overstated. Here are the four themes that defined Ahrefs Evolve 2025 for me. Pro Tip Want to…
Ask ChatGPT, “How much does SEO cost?” and you’ll likely see Ahrefs cited as a source. Ask Claude about email marketing benchmarks, and Mailchimp’s data appears. Search Perplexity for project management tips, and Asana’s guides get referenced. At first glance, it looks like only big brands get cited in AI answers. In the top 10…
An AI visibility audit provides a structured approach for search and brand teams to assess how their brand shows up on platforms like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. It measures where the brand is mentioned in AI search platforms, how often, how accurately, and based on which sources. Here’s a step-by-step process for how…
Your brand presence shouldn’t depend on luck, algorithms, or guesswork. It should be built and improved with precision so you show up in all the places that matter, exactly as you want to be represented. That’s what a brand gap analysis enables. It also turns brand visibility from a vague concept into something measurable and…
