Get retrieved by the engine's own fan-out search
A page gets cited only if the engine's own sub-query search retrieves it. That ranking is not Google's. This is the biggest lever and cannot be seen from one URL.
Best study is at least large-n observational or controlled, with some replication. Outcome data is still mostly correlational.
Toronto: 100% of pages ChatGPT cited had been retrieved by its own search. 97% of retrieved pages were absent from Google's top 50. Guidance only in the free check.
Guidance only
- Replay your buyer prompts in each engine and note which pages it retrieves versus cites. The free check can only proxy this via query-match against the 10 prompts.
Caveats
- — Ahrefs AI Overview top-10 overlap fell from 76% (Jul 2025) to about 38% (Mar 2026). Ahrefs attributes the drop partly to fan-out; that is their explanation, not a measured cause. Do not quote 76% as current.
- — Off-site / not measurable from a single page fetch. Guidance only: not graded in the free check.
Studies and docs
2026
100% of ChatGPT-cited pages had been retrieved by ChatGPT's own search. It cites 43.8% of its rank-1 results and 3.5% at ranks 11–20. 97% of retrieved pages were absent from Google's top 50.
2026
Across 863k SERPs / 4M AIO URLs, about 37.9% of cited URLs were in Google's top 10 — down from 76% in Ahrefs' July 2025 study. Ahrefs suggests fan-out as a reason (hypothesis).
2026
AI Overviews and AI Mode may use a query fan-out technique. No special schema or AI text files required; the page must be indexed and snippet-eligible.
This one happens off your site
A page check can't measure it. Uncanny Labs helps teams plan and test off-site work like this, with the evidence shown.
Book a call →See what AI agents can find on your site
Our free AI visibility check shows whether AI agents can reach, read and quote your site, with each fix graded by evidence. There's no overall score, and no one can promise citations.
Free. No password.