AI surfacing is messy: Data shows publisher visibility and traffic often misalign

The problem is there’s no single way to measure AI visibility. These lists diverge depending on which prompts and AI search engines were analyzed, and how “mentions” are defined — making it difficult to pin down which publishers are being surfaced the most.

“Nobody knows anything yet. It took us how many years to kind of wrap our heads around SEO in general? And now there is this brand new thing, and people are like, ‘I’m an expert.’ Nobody’s an expert,” said Vince Nero, director of content marketing at digital PR platform Buzzstream. “I view this as a continued data point and piece of learning for people in the industry.”

But one thing is clear: the publishers most frequently cited in AI chatbot responses are also among those getting the most AI referral traffic. However, their rankings don’t align, suggesting visibility in AI answers doesn’t guarantee clicks.

Let’s break down what these reports are showing:

Most cited publishers in AI

Here’s Buzzstream’s ranking of the top news sites that appear in AI search, based on citations in AI platforms in January:

Buzzstream used Xofu, an AI citation monitoring tool created by SEO and digital marketing agency Citation Labs, to analyze 4 million AI citations across 10 industries and 3,600 prompts. Buzzstream broke those prompts up into three categories: exploratory/informative, evaluative/decision-making and general brand awareness.

Overall, articles from news publications accounted for 14 percent of all the citations Buzzstream analyzed in ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Citations from news publications were the least frequent for brand awareness queries, with prompts like: “Why is Delta important in travel?” or “What role does HBO play in media & entertainment?”

However, news publications were most likely to appear in prompts where users sought evaluations or decisions, such as “Is Sony better than Bose?” or “Nike vs Adidas: Which is the better option?”. Overall, the most news publisher citations came from evaluative queries and head-to-head brand comparisons, according to Nero.

Most mentioned publishers in AI

Similarweb identified a different mix of the top 10 publishers sourced by AI chatbots in January, according to its recent report on AI visibility. 

Reuters, The Guardian and AP News were the most frequently mentioned news publishers in AI responses, and The Washington Post was the fastest-rising news org in AI visibility over the past quarter.

There is an important distinction here: Buzzstream measured citations, which refers to how often a link to a publisher’s site is included in an AI-generated summary. Similarweb measured how often a publisher is mentioned in an AI summary, either by brand name or as a source. 

Similarweb’s methodology was also different. The analytics firm declined to share the raw data it used to create its AI visibility index. David Carr, Similarweb’s senior insights manager, said the data analytics company gathered user browsing data, aggregated and anonymized it, and looked for trends in AI prompts and topics in AI summaries from ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity. Similarweb tracked how often a brand was mentioned or referenced in those responses and measured this against the total responses in the news category.

The reality is, measuring AI visibility is a convoluted process, with each analytics firm piecing together a cobweb of different datasets and methodologies to extrapolate how often a brand is mentioned or cited in AI-generated responses.

Case in point: In February, AI visibility analytics firm Profound shared with Digiday its own list of the most cited publishers, including Forbes, Nerd Wallet, Tech Radar, Reuters, Bankrate, Investopedia, Tom’s Guide, Business Insider, The Verge and AP News. So while there is some overlap in publishers that were often mentioned and cited in LLMs, the mix of the top 10 publishers varies. Reuters was the only publisher that appeared in Buzzstream, Similarweb and Profound’s analysis, suggesting wire services may have a unique advantage in AI search.

Publishers embrace being surfaced in AI search

Even among the top new publishers, AI visibility has been volatile – rising and falling consistently over the past nine months, suggesting the rankings are far from settled. 

Adelle Kehoe, director of product marketing at Similarweb, chalked that up to the volatility of the news cycle, as well as adjustments to the LLMs themselves.

But publishing execs are welcoming their growing influence in AI search.

Alphonse Hardel, the head of Reuters’ news agency, attributed the publisher’s “speed, accuracy, and breadth” of its reporting to being mentioned often in AI chatbots. While he didn’t point to any specific strategies that boosted Reuters’ AI visibility, he credited Reuters’ content licensing news agency, its visibility in traditional search, and content licensing deals with LLMs (including Microsoft and Meta). Hardel said Reuters sees the same demand fluctuations in its traditional search visibility and among its news agency customers.

On the other hand, The Washington Post has made a concerted effort to improve its AI visibility, according to chief revenue officer Karl Wells. The Post has signed deals with companies like OpenAI, Google, Amazon and Perplexity, and hired Kyle Sutton as its first head of AI discovery last year. “We are constantly optimizing how we are found within AI discovery platforms,” Wells said.

People who come from LLMs to The Washington Post’s site spend more time onsite than those coming from search or social, and have a four-to-five-times higher subscription conversion rate compared to traditional search, according to Wells. In the last six months, AI referral traffic is up 16 percent compared to the previous period, he added.

“This feeds our advertising and subscriptions businesses with highly engaged readers and viewers,” Wells said. “We’re increasingly finding that our advertising partners want exposure through LLMs as well, and we’re happy to leverage our expertise to support our partners.”

However, while Hardel said AI citations to Reuters are growing at a “high rate,” it’s from a “very low base,” which is similar to what a number of other publishers are seeing. Both citations and mentions in LLMs are important metrics that Reuters is tracking, Hardel added. 

The referral traffic mismatch

However, the value of AI visibility is still a gray area – being mentioned or cited often in AI search doesn’t directly correlate with higher referral traffic coming from LLMs.

Similarweb data shared with Digiday shows the top 10 publishers receiving the most traffic from AI chatbots. The New York Times is getting the most AI referral traffic, though it’s eighth in Similarweb’s AI visibility index. Reuters is first in the AI visibility index, but ninth in terms of overall AI referral traffic:

News is a unique category in Similarweb’s AI visibility report — which also looks at brands in a range of categories — as publishers’ rankings do not necessarily coincide with their audience size, Kehoe noted. 

Niche, specialist news sites rank higher in AI visibility than branded search, as they answer specific prompts, she said. For example, sites like Britannica, Good Housekeeping, Marketwatch, Newsweek, PC Gamer, People, ScienceDirect and Taste of Home were over-represented in their AI visibility rankings compared to branded search demand in the Similarweb report.

And though overall visits to LLMs are growing, AI referral traffic has plateaued, Similarweb’s report shows — meaning publishers’ hopes that AI chatbots would send more traffic to their sites may not materialize anytime soon. LLMs only drive about 1% of overall web traffic.

“I wouldn’t say [AI visibility is] our goal,” Hardel said. “But I would say being a top source [in AI] aligns with our mission, which is to bring factual and accurate information to the world. So if that participates in that, that’s great. If that also helps us keep building a business with AI companies… that’s certainly positive. And I think it’s a reflection of the quality of our news.”