[Ahrefs Survey | Changes in AI Information Sources Over 6 Months] Latest Ranking of Domains Cited by ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Copilot
Ahrefs has released a ranking of domains cited by 5 major AI platforms. YouTube ranked first overall, highlighting new visibility metrics in the AI search era.
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: April 3, 2026 at 00:04
- 🔍 Collected: April 2, 2026 at 19:36
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: April 21, 2026 at 04:50 (441h 13m after Collected)
Did you know which sites AI cites as "trusted sources" when generating answers?
In the era of Google's AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot, AI is now at the center of the search experience. Being "cited by AI" is becoming a new metric directly linked to brand and content exposure.
This time, Ahrefs analyzed citation data across 5 AI platforms using its proprietary AI search visibility tool "Brand Radar" and revealed the TOP 10 domains most trusted by AI. Also, considering about 6 months have passed since the previous survey in October 2025, we verify how AI's citation trends have changed.
▪️Overall Ranking: TOP 10 Domains Cited by AI
Below is the overall ranking totaling the number of citations across 5 AI platforms (cumulative as of March 31, 2026).
Overall 1st place is YouTube (3,318,795 citations), cited by 3 LLMs: AI Mode, AI Overviews, and Perplexity. 2nd place Wikipedia Japanese version (978,834 citations) appears in 4 LLMs, the highest number of appearances.
Noteworthy is 5th place note.com (384,517 citations), which is stably cited across 4 LLMs.
On the other hand, 3rd place Google (906,952 citations) and 6th place Amazon.co.jp (360,091 citations) only appeared in 1 LLM (AI Mode), showing that citations are concentrated in a specific AI.
Also, 9th place PR TIMES (95,655 citations) ranked in despite only being on ChatGPT, which is notable as it shows press releases are recognized by AI as "official information."
▪️Individuality of Each "AI" Seen by Platform
We have organized the differences in citation trends of each AI, which cannot be seen from the overall ranking alone, by platform. Detailed rankings and analysis for each platform are explained in this blog post.
In the era of Google's AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot, AI is now at the center of the search experience. Being "cited by AI" is becoming a new metric directly linked to brand and content exposure.
This time, Ahrefs analyzed citation data across 5 AI platforms using its proprietary AI search visibility tool "Brand Radar" and revealed the TOP 10 domains most trusted by AI. Also, considering about 6 months have passed since the previous survey in October 2025, we verify how AI's citation trends have changed.
▪️Overall Ranking: TOP 10 Domains Cited by AI
Below is the overall ranking totaling the number of citations across 5 AI platforms (cumulative as of March 31, 2026).
Overall 1st place is YouTube (3,318,795 citations), cited by 3 LLMs: AI Mode, AI Overviews, and Perplexity. 2nd place Wikipedia Japanese version (978,834 citations) appears in 4 LLMs, the highest number of appearances.
Noteworthy is 5th place note.com (384,517 citations), which is stably cited across 4 LLMs.
On the other hand, 3rd place Google (906,952 citations) and 6th place Amazon.co.jp (360,091 citations) only appeared in 1 LLM (AI Mode), showing that citations are concentrated in a specific AI.
Also, 9th place PR TIMES (95,655 citations) ranked in despite only being on ChatGPT, which is notable as it shows press releases are recognized by AI as "official information."
▪️Individuality of Each "AI" Seen by Platform
We have organized the differences in citation trends of each AI, which cannot be seen from the overall ranking alone, by platform. Detailed rankings and analysis for each platform are explained in this blog post.