{"id":2983,"date":"2025-06-19T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/heres-who-gets-favored-who-gets-shunned-in-the-new-era\/"},"modified":"2025-06-19T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T10:00:00","slug":"heres-who-gets-favored-who-gets-shunned-in-the-new-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/heres-who-gets-favored-who-gets-shunned-in-the-new-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s Who Gets Favored &#038; Who Gets Shunned in the New Era"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>AI assistants are rewriting the rules when it comes to visibility on the web. The websites they mention are chosen based on different criteria than traditional search rankings.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of just looking at which websites are mentioned the most, I wanted to understand whether those mentions actually match the popularity of the topics being discussed.<\/p>\n<p>I compared each domain\u2019s <em>Mention Share<\/em> (how often it shows up) to its <em>Impression Share<\/em> (how often you\u2019d expect it to show up based on search volume for those topics).<\/p>\n<p>This comparison helps to uncover biases and show whether a particular system is leaning into certain sources more or less than expected based on the popularity of the topics the website covers.<\/p>\n<p>I looked at the top 50 websites cited in <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/brand-radar\">Ahrefs Brand Radar<\/a> for Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.<\/p>\n<p>This is across ~76.7M AI Overviews, 957k ChatGPT prompts, and 953.5k Perplexity prompts for the month of June\u00a02025.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Google AI Overviews<\/strong> lean heavily on UGC sites like Reddit, Quora, and YouTube. Far more than they were relied upon by Google Search. Wikipedia and health sites like Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic are under-represented. YouTube is owned by Google, so they may prefer it. Google has a licensing deal with Reddit and has given them a lot of visibility in Google Search already.<\/li>\n<li><strong>ChatGPT<\/strong> under-represents Wikipedia and Reuters.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Perplexity <\/strong>is fairly neutral overall.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Wikipedia<\/strong> was slightly under-represented in Perplexity, but under-represented quite a bit in Google and ChatGPT. Despite Wikipedia\u2019s popularity in AI assistants, it looks like these systems are fairly biased against them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here\u2019s the nerdy\u00a0data.<\/p>\n<p>Google seems to be relying on more user-generated content (UGC) sites than they are trustworthy sites, those considered to have more <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/eeat-seo\/\">EEAT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here are a couple definitions to keep in\u00a0mind:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Mention Share<\/strong> is how frequently a domain is mentioned across all AI responses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>Mention Share = (Number of responses that mention the domain \u00f7 Total number of AI responses analyzed) \u00d7 100<\/code><\/pre>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Impression Share<\/strong> weights mentions by Google search volume to estimate how much potential visibility a site gets across high- vs. low-demand topics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>Impression Share = (Sum of search volume for queries where the domain is mentioned \u00f7 Total search volume of all AI-analyzed queries) \u00d7 100<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>The difference between Mention Share and Impression Share tells you whether a website is being cited more in high-visibility queries or low-visibility ones. It reveals systemic biases in how AI assistants show different websites.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1686\" height=\"1910\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-1.png\" alt=\"mentions vs impression share for Google AI Overviews\" class=\"wp-image-188852\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-1.png 1686w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-1-375x425.png 375w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-1-768x870.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-1-1356x1536.png 1356w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1686px) 100vw, 1686px\"\/><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Over-relying on:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Reddit<\/strong> (7.4% vs 4.0%): mentioned 3.4% more than its expected visibility<\/li>\n<li><strong>Quora<\/strong> (3.6% vs 1.4%): mentioned 2.2% more than its expected visibility<\/li>\n<li><strong>YouTube<\/strong> (9.8% vs 7.8%): mentioned 2.0% more than its expected visibility<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Under-utilizing:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Wikipedia<\/strong> (8.4% vs 11.6%): mentioned 3.2% less than its expected visibility<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mayo Clinic<\/strong> (2.9% vs 4.5%): mentioned 1.6% less than its expected visibility<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cleveland Clinic<\/strong> (2.9% vs 4.5%): mentioned 1.6% less than its expected visibility<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can use <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/brand-radar\">Ahrefs Brand Radar<\/a> to see when these biases may have been introduced.<\/p>\n<p>For example, here are the Mentions for the top 5 sites in AI Overviews over time, but weighted to the market. It looks like Google is moving away from Wikipedia, moving towards Reddit heavily in December and March, towards Google Translate in March, towards Quora in December and March, but away from Quora in April, and may have moved away from YouTube back in October, but brought it back in\u00a0April.<\/p>\n<p>This is how you see algorithm updates and trends in the new\u00a0era.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"908\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/word-image-188714-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-188716\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/word-image-188714-2.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/word-image-188714-2-680x301.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/word-image-188714-2-768x341.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/word-image-188714-2-1536x681.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\"\/><\/noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"908\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/word-image-188714-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-188716\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/word-image-188714-2.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/word-image-188714-2-680x301.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/word-image-188714-2-768x341.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/word-image-188714-2-1536x681.jpg 1536w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>ChatGPT was the system that I thought would have the most radical differences. Overall, they seem to under-represent Wikipedia and news\u00a0sites.<\/p>\n<p>One more definition:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Potential Reach Share (%)<\/strong> estimates how much exposure a domain <em>could<\/em> be getting in an AI assistant responses. There is no reliable search volume for AI assistants, so this weights in search volume from Google searches and acts as a proxy based on historical web popularity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>Potential Reach Share = (Sum of search volume for prompts where the domain is mentioned \u00f7 Total search volume for all prompts analyzed) \u00d7 100<\/code><\/pre>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1686\" height=\"1910\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-chatgpt.png\" alt=\"mentions vs potential reach share for ChatGPT\" class=\"wp-image-188717\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-chatgpt.png 1686w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-chatgpt-375x425.png 375w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-chatgpt-768x870.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-chatgpt-1356x1536.png 1356w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1686px) 100vw, 1686px\"\/><\/noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1686\" height=\"1910\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-chatgpt.png\" alt=\"mentions vs potential reach share for ChatGPT\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-188717\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-chatgpt.png 1686w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-chatgpt-375x425.png 375w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-chatgpt-768x870.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-chatgpt-1356x1536.png 1356w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 1686px) 100vw, 1686px\"\/><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Over-relying on:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Google.com<\/strong> (2.3% vs 1.7%): 0.6%\u00a0over<\/li>\n<li><strong>Apple.com<\/strong> (4.0% vs 3.8%): 0.2%\u00a0over<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Under-utilizing:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Wikipedia<\/strong> (16.3% vs 19.3%): 3.0%\u00a0under<\/li>\n<li><strong>Reuters<\/strong> (4.3% vs 6.4%): 2.1%\u00a0under<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I was expecting Perplexity to bias against Wikipedia more. The CEO has made some comments about Wikipedia\u2019s bias and even offered to support anyone who wanted to build an alternative. I couldn\u2019t have been more\u00a0wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Perplexity appears to be the most balanced, showing mention patterns that roughly align with topic popularity on the traditional web.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1686\" height=\"1876\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-perplexity.png\" alt=\"mentions vs potential reach share for perplexity\" class=\"wp-image-188718\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-perplexity.png 1686w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-perplexity-382x425.png 382w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-perplexity-768x855.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-perplexity-1380x1536.png 1380w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1686px) 100vw, 1686px\"\/><\/noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1686\" height=\"1876\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-perplexity.png\" alt=\"mentions vs potential reach share for perplexity\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-188718\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-perplexity.png 1686w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-perplexity-382x425.png 382w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-perplexity-768x855.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mentions-vs-potential-reach-share-for-perplexity-1380x1536.png 1380w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 1686px) 100vw, 1686px\"\/><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Over-relying on:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>YouTube<\/strong> (16.1% vs 15.7%): 0.4%\u00a0over<\/li>\n<li><strong>Apple.com<\/strong> (3.5% vs 2.6%): 0.9%\u00a0over<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Under-utilizing:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Wikipedia<\/strong> (12.5% vs 13.4%): 0.9%\u00a0under<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tuasaude.com<\/strong> (1.6% vs 2.5%): 0.9%\u00a0under<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-188714-_gun4qf9if01x\"\/>Final thoughts<\/h3>\n<p>Search is fragmenting. We\u2019re so used to just optimizing for Google. Now we might need to look at optimizing for different systems with different biases.<\/p>\n<p>If you have questions, ask me on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/patrickstox\/\">LinkedIn<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/patrickstox\">X<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\nif(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod?n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments);if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window,document,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');fbq('init','1511271639109289');fbq('track','PageView');<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/ai-assistants-bias-winners-losers\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI assistants are rewriting the rules when it comes to visibility on the web. The websites they mention are chosen based on different criteria than traditional search rankings. Instead of just looking at which websites are mentioned the most, I wanted to understand whether those mentions actually match the popularity of the topics being discussed. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}