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Most-cited websites by Google AI Mode

The publishers and platforms Google AI Mode actually reaches for when it answers, ranked by citation share, with weekly movement.

Rolling 4 weeks: 30,561 citations · 9,251 model responses · every named domain seen across ≥ 2 independent projects

Top-50 stability: 34% retained week to week: a fast-changing source list

By modelAll models Claude Gemini ChatGPT Grok Google AIO

This week's movers

Citation-share change, week commencing 2026-09-28 vs 2026-10-05. Minimum 25 citations in both weeks and a 0.2pp move to qualify; domains newly added to monitoring don't count as movers.

Gaining

google.com 1.8% → 2.8% ▲ +1.0pp

googlesyndication.com 0.4% → 0.8% ▲ +0.5pp

instagram.com 0.4% → 0.6% ▲ +0.3pp

adac.de 0.4% → 0.7% ▲ +0.3pp

tiktok.com 0.3% → 0.5% ▲ +0.2pp

Declining

youtube.com 3.7% → 2.7% ▼ -1.0pp

shopping.google.com 3.2% → 2.5% ▼ -0.7pp

reddit.com 2.2% → 1.8% ▼ -0.3pp

Google AI Mode's top sources

Top 50 domains by share of all citations in the rolling window. The trend column is the weekly share trajectory.

#	Domain	Share	Citations
1	youtube.com	3.7%	1,126
2	shopping.google.com	2.3%	703
3	facebook.com	1.9%	586
4	google.com	1.9%	584
5	reddit.com	1.9%	581
6	gollo.com	1.2%	371
7	instagram.com	0.7%	228
8	moneysupermarket.com	0.6%	170
9	googlesyndication.com	0.5%	168
10	tiktok.com	0.4%	137
11	adac.de	0.4%	137
12	trustpilot.com	0.4%	135
13	whatcar.com	0.4%	126
14	gocompare.com	0.4%	119
15	tesla.com	0.4%	116
16	linkedin.com	0.4%	112
17	carwow.co.uk	0.3%	104
18	moneysavingexpert.com	0.3%	97
19	kia.com	0.3%	89
20	lizy.be	0.3%	86
21	consumerreports.org	0.3%	85
22	vivacar.fr	0.2%	71
23	usnews.com	0.2%	69
24	espaciofurgo.com	0.2%	69
25	postoffice.co.uk	0.2%	69
26	vroom.be	0.2%	67
27	anwb.nl	0.2%	66
28	hyundai.com	0.2%	66
29	comparethemarket.com	0.2%	64
30	aviva.co.uk	0.2%	63
31	ayvens.com	0.2%	63
32	edu.pe	0.2%	61
33	autohero.com	0.2%	59
34	moneyhelper.org.uk	0.2%	58
35	forbes.com	0.2%	58
36	rankingdecoches.com	0.2%	54
37	gov.co	0.2%	52
38	yahoo.com	0.2%	49
39	gob.pe	0.2%	49
40	jdpower.com	0.2%	49
41	samsung.com	0.2%	48
42	which.co.uk	0.2%	47
43	autofact.cl	0.2%	46
44	volvocars.com	0.1%	43
45	go-electra.com	0.1%	43
46	automobile-propre.com	0.1%	41
47	highmotor.com	0.1%	41
48	gov.uk	0.1%	41
49	nih.gov	0.1%	41
50	wikipedia.org	0.1%	40

The race for the top

Where the leading sources sat against each other, week by week. Rank space makes every crossing an event.

Figure 1The race for the top of the index

Rank within the top 6 sources, week by week. Only the biggest mover is coloured; the greys are the rest of the field.

Data table

Series	21 Sept	28 Sept	5 Oct	12 Oct
youtube.com	1	1	2	1
shopping.google.com	6	2	3	5
facebook.com	2	4	4	3
google.com	4	5	1	6
reddit.com	3	3	5	2
gollo.com	5	6	6	4

2 places lost: google.com, #4 → #6 (12 Oct)

How sourced are the answers?

Citations per response over the last 12 complete weeks: whether the models are leaning on the web more or less.

Figure 2Citations per answer, week by week

Each cell is one model in one week; hotter cells mean answers leaned on more sources. Single-hue ramp; the scale runs from the lowest to the highest cell shown.

Data table

Series	20 Jul	27 Jul	3 Aug	10 Aug	17 Aug	24 Aug	31 Aug	7 Sept	14 Sept	21 Sept	28 Sept	5 Oct
Google AI Mode	6	5.6	10.6	9.6	8.7	3.5	3.1	3.1	3	3.3	3.3	3.2

Methodology

What's counted: every citation/source URL Google AI Mode returned across the rolling 4 ISO weeks, aggregated from every analysis run on BrandInsightAI. Citations deduplicate to one registrable domain per model response.
Quality gate: a domain must appear across ≥ 2 distinct projects to be named; shares are computed against ALL citations in scope, so the gate hides names, never distorts percentages.
Movers: week-over-week comparisons use the two most recent COMPLETE ISO weeks (2026-09-28 → 2026-10-05); the in-progress week is excluded because it refreshes hourly, and a domain must clear the citation floor in BOTH weeks, so a newly monitored category entering the dataset never shows up as a gainer.
Freshness: the snapshot behind this page recomputes every hour. All figures are measured, never estimated.

Where next

This board answers "which websites does AI cite?". These answer the questions that come next — which brands it recommends, which sources each model prefers, and how any of it is counted.

By modelAll models Claude Gemini ChatGPT Grok Google AIO

Explorer The AI Source Index Dig into which sources each model trusts, filterable by market — compiled into a quarterly report you can download as PowerPoint or PDF. Updated hourly Live leaderboards The Category Index The board behind the story — every category ranked: brand visibility, citation share and how often a read page actually gets cited. Refreshed weekly Live leaderboard The AI Desire Index What AI assistants want from a brand: attraction, affinity and attachment for every brand in every category, indexed and refreshed weekly. Refreshed weekly Journal Analysis & articles The data journalism series — weekly citation movers, model vs model, what gets cited and why. Every edition reviewed before it publishes. New articles weekly Data story The Category Report How AI shops for Britain: the brands ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini actually recommend across 20 consumer categories, told as an animated story. Refreshed weekly Reference Methodology How every number is measured: real AI answers, counted not estimated, with sample sizes and limitations stated on every page. The rules behind it all Start here Insights overview The whole picture in one page: every live board, every data story and every published analysis, with what each one answers. The map of everything