Hey Marketing Bestie,
Sinner vs. Alcaraz. Master's Sunday. I put brown sugar on my oatmeal this morning instead of walnuts. Life is good. No F1 today but that's okay. Again, brown sugar day. |
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The AI Search Cheat Sheet |
I spent way too long researching this so you don't have to. I went deep on every major U.S. AI engine to figure out exactly what each one rewards when it decides who gets cited and who gets ignored. Turns out they all have a different type. Here's what I found.
But also, a quick reality check before we get into it: 60% of AI citations go to pages not even in Google's top 10 (OmniSEO). IT'S NOT ABOUT WHAT RANKS ON GOOGLE. So if you've been playing the old game, the scoreboard already changed on you. |
ChatGPT is the most popular kid in school.
Everyone wants their attention. And because of that, it gets to be selective. (I wasn't popular but that's a story for another day).
I found that it runs multiple searches behind every single query. And, getting pickier every month.
What to do:
- Write a 40 to 60 word direct answer right below your headline. No links inside of it. That 1 block is the biggest on-page factor you have.
- Have 1 number that only you own. A survey. Internal data. Something nobody else can copy and paste.
- Get your brand talked about on Reddit and Quora in real conversations. Not spam. Actual participation. ChatGPT treats community presence as a trust signal.
- Remember the 1 thing that throws people that we just talked about. ChatGPT mostly pulls from pages that aren't even ranking in the top 10. It's reading deeper than you think so focus on getting specific. |
Gemini is Google's AI. So it plays by Google's rules. Funny how that works!
No Google ranking means no Gemini citation. Simple as that.
When I dug into how Gemini 3 works, I found it doesn't just answer your question anymore. It breaks it into sub-questions and sources each one separately. So a page sitting at position 40 for a related topic can still show up in the final answer.
What also caught my attention: Gemini 3 dropped in January 2026 and reshuffled 42% of previously cited domains overnight. Brands that had built real visibility woke up and it was gone. Poof.
And the most cited domain in Gemini right now is not a blog. Not a news site.
It's YouTube. Google loves Google lol.
- Rank on Google first. That is still the entry ticket.
- Add images and video to your important pages.
- Make your author visible. Real credentials, real experience signals. Gemini filters pages without them before anything else gets evaluated.
- Check that Google-Extended can crawl your site. It is a separate crawler from Googlebot. One for Search, one for Gemini. Most sites never check both.
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Claude is the professor of the group.
When I researched how Claude selects sources, 1 thing stood out immediately. It does not care how confident you sound. It cares whether what you are saying is actually true. Tone isn't a factor.
Before it cites you, it checks your claims against other sources. If your page says something that doesn't hold up, it moves on. Accuracy is a ranking factor here the same way keywords were a ranking factor 10 years ago.
It surprised me that Claude is the only AI where staying balanced and honest actively improves your citation chances. Every other platform wants a clear answer. Claude wants honesty and options.
- Write long. Pages under 1,500 words do not give Claude enough to work with.
- Link out to real sources. Academic papers, government data, industry reports.
- Do not write like a sales page. Claude rewards content that acknowledges limitations and presents more than one angle.
- Put a real person behind the content. Named author, actual bio, real credentials. Anonymous pages lose trust points immediately. This is true across each of these. |
Grok is the only AI reading your tweets in real time.
Not yesterday's tweets. Right now. Do we still get to call them tweets?
When I looked at Grok's growth numbers I had to double check them. It went from 1.9% to 17.8% US market share in 1 year. And its web search runs on Bing, not Google, which means a completely different set of rules from everything else on this list.
A strong thread about your brand on X can change what Grok says about you within hours. That is how live this thing is. DYNAMIC!
- Post on X with structure. Threads that open with a direct answer and include specific numbers get read as content by Grok.
- Use IndexNow so Bing indexes your new pages the same day you publish. Without it you miss the citation window entirely.
- Write your subheadings as full questions. "What is the fastest way to grow an email list?" beats "Email growth tips" every time.
- Check your robots.txt file. If xAI's crawler is blocked, nothing else you do for Grok visibility matters at all.
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Copilot is not just a search engine. Full stop but I'll continue lol. It's sitting inside Word, Outlook, Teams, and Excel for 400 million Microsoft 365 users. Someone researching vendors in Outlook can get a Copilot answer without ever opening a browser.
That is a recommendation engine living inside the tools your buyers use every single day.
And because Microsoft owns LinkedIn, I found that author pages with LinkedIn profile links carry credibility signals here that no other AI platform replicates.
- Submit your sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools if you haven't. Copilot runs on Bing's index. Not in Bing means not in Copilot.
- Add LinkedIn links to every author bio on your site. 10 minutes of work. Direct impact on how Copilot reads your authority.
- Use IndexNow. Being first to publish and index on a topic can make you the source Copilot keeps pulling from.
- If you sell to enterprise, make this a priority. Your buyers are inside Microsoft's tools all day. A citation there is a recommendation at the exact moment they are making a decision.
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Smaller audience. But growing.
Users who find you through Perplexity convert at 9x the rate of traditional organic visitors.
9 times. !!!
Perplexity shows clickable numbered citations. When it cites you, people actually click through. Every citation is real traffic, not just a brand mention floating somewhere in an AI answer nobody acts on.
And when I looked at which domain gets cited the most on Perplexity, I did not expect the answer. It is Reddit. Not Wikipedia. Not a news site. Reddit.
Reddit keeps coming up - focus on it.
- Update your most important pages monthly. Not just changing the date. New data, new examples, new stats. Freshness is the biggest lever here.
- Write dense. High ratio of specific facts and direct answers per paragraph.
- Vague intros are what gets you skipped.
- Match your format to the question type. Comparisons pull from tables. How-tos pull from numbered steps. Direct questions pull from tight direct answers.
- Get active on Reddit in your niche. Real participation, not promotion.
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What Cuts Across All of Them |
A short direct answer near the top of every page. 1 data point only you own. Content updated regularly. A real named author. Structured data markup. And all the AI crawlers actually allowed to access your site.
That is the foundation. The platform specifics above are what turn eligible into cited. Please open ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Claude, Copilot, and Perplexity right now. Search your top keywords in each 1. See who shows up. That gap is your entire content roadmap. I believe in you! |
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1 IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER |
Big companies have entire teams dedicated to figuring out AI. Someone whose whole job is testing tools and building workflows.
Small businesses have you. Googling it at midnight.
Want to close the gap? Join me on April 29.
We’ll go deep on how to grow your socials, find more leads, and get found online without spending weeks figuring it out.
Cheat sheet included. |
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Podcast to listen to this week: |
How to launch a new product with Ari Murray What you will learn: 🎙: The urgency trick that actually drives buyers to act 🎙: The 1 metric Ari watches on Black Friday that predicts everything
🎙: Why putting all your faith in a new product launch will backfire |
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🤩: Brand of the week: Coachella 😛: Favorite meal I ate: Kazunori
🎵: Favorite song this week: Ghost
💍: What I bought my wife: A really nice black sweater. I'd link it but I don't want to face the pricetag again. Looks like a black sweater to me but I wouldn't dare say that out loud lol.
🍼: What I bought my son: 5 of these. 5. |
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Next Sunday I might put half and half on my oatmeal, too. 🤘
Your friend, Daniel |
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