Study of 3M ChatGPT Responses Finds LLMs Cite Page-Top Content Most Often
A large-scale analysis by Kevin Indig, examining 3 million ChatGPT responses and 30 million citations, found that 44.2% of LLM citations are drawn from the first 30% of a webpage. The middle section accounted for 31.1% of citations, while the final third received only 24.7%, revealing a clear top-loading pattern in how AI models retrieve information. At the paragraph level, 53% of citations came from the middle of a paragraph rather than its opening or closing sentence. The study concludes that publishers should place core answers, key definitions, and primary findings early in their content to improve AI discoverability. Frequently cited content was also found to share traits such as definitive language, high entity density, Q&A structure, and plain, unambiguous writing.
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