ChatGPT gives different brand rankings each run, study finds

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A test conducted on August 16, 2026, using DataForSEO's ChatGPT LLM Scraper found that running the same prompt multiple times produces inconsistent results. Researchers ran identical queries three times each, with no changes to settings or accounts, and compared the outputs. For the prompt 'best email marketing app for Shopify,' only 4 of 16 domains appeared across all three runs, with Mailchimp missing entirely from one run. A broader test across four prompts in the HTML-to-PDF API category showed that more than half of tracked brands appeared in some runs but not others. The findings suggest that single-run ChatGPT brand visibility measurements can be misleading, as instability is most pronounced for mid-tier brands rather than consistent top-ranked ones.

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