Of the sites that ban OpenAI’s crawler, how many still serve it a page?
One index says 39.5%.
Every AI search number, checked against its source.
The one-minute version
How every number is checkedA drawing in four parts: where a 60% statistic really came from, then what the evidence says about clicks, about ranking and about referral traffic, each answer with its source.
Read the transcript
Answer Engineered. Plain answers about AI search. 60% of searches now end without a click. An SEC filing credits that to McKinsey. McKinsey's page never prints it. The number is Bain's. Site owners ask. Every number gets checked against the study behind it. Is AI search taking clicks from my site? Yes, where AI Overviews appear. The top result's click rate fell from 7.3% to 1.6%. Do I need to rank on Google to get cited by AI? Less than you think. 61.7% of cited pages rank outside Google's top 100. Is AI referral traffic worth having? Small, but it converts. ChatGPT visitors converted at 15.9%, against 1.76% for organic search. Plain answers, each one traced to its source.
Is AI search taking clicks from my site?
Yes, where AI answers appear.
On keywords that show a Google AI Overview, the top organic result’s click-through rate fell from 7.3% to 1.6% between December 2023 and December 2025. In a controlled experiment, switching people to AI Mode cut their clicks to publishers by 18.8 percentage points.
Source: Ahrefs, 300,000 keywords. Preregistered field experiment with 1,100 participants.
7.3%to1.6%
Ahrefs, 300,000 keywords
How this figure was checked
Position-1 CTR on AI Overview keywords, Dec 2023 to Dec 2025 (Ahrefs)
Read the entry: The position-1 CTR collapse: from 7.3% to 1.6% in two yearsDo I need to rank on Google to get cited by AI?
Less than you would think.
31.0% of the pages Google cites in its own AI Overviews rank nowhere in the top 100 for the query, and another 31.2% sit at positions 11 to 100. Rank tracking cannot see most of the places AI citations go.
Source: Ahrefs, 4M AI Overview URLs across 863K keyword SERPs.
37.9%vs31.0%
Ahrefs, 4M AI Overview URLs
How this figure was checked
Where Google AI Overview citations sit in the ordinary results for the same query, per Ahrefs' match of 4M AI Overview URLs against 863K keyword SERPs (2 March 2026): 37.9% also appear in the first 10 blocks, 31.2% at positions 11-100 and 31.0% nowhere in the top 100. Descriptive, not causal, Google AI Overviews only, and published by a vendor that sells an AI-visibility tracker. Ranking is a tailwind on this evidence and not a gate
Read the entry: What actually gets a page into an AI answer: eight tactics, ranked by evidenceDoes AI prefer new content?
It prefers recently edited pages.
Of AI-cited pages with both dates readable, 72% looked fresh by their last update, but only 42% were first published within the past year. The freshness comes from editing old pages, not from publishing new ones.
Source: Seer Interactive, 7,683 pages cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity; the 72% and 42% are of the 4,124 pages with both dates.
72%vs42%
4,124 pages with both dates
How this figure was checked
Cited pages fresh by update date vs published within a year (Seer Interactive, 4,124 pages)
Read the entry: The freshness illusion: why AI cites edited pages, not new onesThe evidence
Is AI referral traffic worth having?
Small, but it converts.
ChatGPT referrals converted at 15.9%, against 1.76% for organic search. Most AI visits are invisible in analytics: 70.6% arrive with no referrer and show up as Direct.
Source: Orbit Media, 446,000 AI visits.
15.9%vs1.76%
Orbit Media, 446,000 AI visits
How this figure was checked
ChatGPT referral vs organic conversion rate (Orbit Media)
Read the entry: AI referral traffic is small, and converts at 9x the organic rateThe evidence
Does llms.txt help AI find and cite my pages?
No evidence that it does.
One cited URL in 94,614 came from an llms.txt page, and Google says on the record that its AI systems do not use the file. Of 584,107 llms.txt files in one crawl, 68.27% were templated.
Source: Allmo citation analysis, June 2026. Common Crawl, July 2026 crawl.
1 / 94,614
Allmo citation analysis, June 2026
How this figure was checked
AI-cited URLs traceable to an llms.txt page (Allmo)
Read the entry: llms.txt does not work: 1 cited URL in 94,614Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT’s answers?
Not with ads, on current evidence.
Ads appeared on 25.94% of 50,006 commercial ChatGPT prompts. The advertiser was missing from the answer’s own cited sources 96.37% of the time.
Source: SE Ranking, 50,006 prompts. The only public measurement so far.
96.37%
SE Ranking, 50,006 prompts
How this figure was checked
ChatGPT ads where the advertiser is absent from the answer sources (SE Ranking, 50,006 prompts)
Read the entry: ChatGPT ads reached five more countries. The ad rarely buys the citation.Can I control what AI companies take from my site?
Partly, and the trade is hard to measure.
Google’s new Search Console opt-out removes a site from AI Overviews and AI Mode, but its reporting carries no clicks. In one index, 39.5% of sites that disallow OpenAI’s GPTBot still served it a page.
Source: Google Search Console documentation. AI Crawler Block Index raw counts.
39.5%vs47.1%
AI Crawler Block Index raw counts
How this figure was checked
Share of GPTBot robots.txt bans that served the bot a page anyway, July 2026 wave of HasData's AI Crawler Block Index, as the same README states it twice: the sentence (39.5%, stated as 234 of 592 sites that disallow GPTBot) against the chart caption beside it (47.1%, which reproduces as 982 of the 2,083 tested records, proxy failures included)
Read the entry: 39.5% and 47.1% describe the same test. One has the wrong denominator.Can I trust the AI search statistics I see quoted?
Check the source first.
Most numbers we traced were real, but changed on the way: a new denominator, a dropped range, a different firm credited. A LinkedIn post quoted 93% where its source printed 92%. A Reuters Institute explainer attached Pew’s 1% AI Overview click rate to over 68,000 searches, where Pew prints the base for it as 12,593.
Source: Our traces of quoted statistics back to their primary source, since July 2026.
93%quoted; the source prints 92%
quoted 93% where its source printed 92%
How this figure was checked
Share of the 24 most-cited LinkedIn articles said to use clear section headings: a LinkedIn marketing post of 29 September 2026 (93%) against the Meltwater page it links (92%, which is 22 of 24). No whole number of articles out of 24 gives 93%
Read the entry: LinkedIn's VP quotes 93%. The report he cites prints 92%.
Latest entries
All 35 entries- No. 035+7.5%vs-5.3%
Schema markup and AI answers: 0 lab pages, 1 Google slide, +7.5% and -5.3%
No AI lab documents reading JSON-LD. Google says it is not required, a Google slide shows it as AI Mode context, and the one university test splits two ways.
- No. 03437.9%vs31.0%
What actually gets a page into an AI answer: eight tactics, ranked by evidence
Eight commonly recommended ways to get cited by AI, ranked by how good the evidence is. One is documented, two are null results, the rest is correlation.
- No. 03311%vs47%
How to check whether AI engines cite you, without buying a tool
Provider documentation is enough to build a manual citation check. Five hits in 20 runs carry a 95% interval of 11% to 47%, which is our own arithmetic.
- No. 03268,879vs12,593
Pew's 1% counts 12,593 searches. The sentence quoting it says 68,000.
A Reuters Institute explainer of 13 October attaches Pew's 1% AI Overview click rate to over 68,000 searches. Pew's base is the 12,593 that produced a summary.
- No. 03193%vs92%
LinkedIn's VP quotes 93%. The report he cites prints 92%.
A LinkedIn marketing post cites 93% of the 24 most-cited articles. The Meltwater page it links prints 92%, which is 22 of 24. The studies under it disagree too.
- No. 03039.5%vs47.1%
39.5% and 47.1% describe the same test. One has the wrong denominator.
A crawler-block index reports that 39.5% of GPTBot bans go unenforced. The chart in its own README says 47.1%. The raw data file shows what changed underneath.
The index, monthly. Who AI engines cite, who they dropped, every number sourced.
35 entries so far, every figure linked to the source it was checked against.