Live · updated hourly
Most-cited websites by Google AIO
The publishers and platforms Google AIO actually reaches for when it answers, ranked by citation share, with weekly movement.
Rolling 4 weeks: 57,287 citations · 9,774 model responses · every named domain seen across ≥ 2 independent projects
Top-50 stability: 26% retained week to week: a fast-changing source list
This week's movers
Citation-share change, week commencing 2026-08-31 vs 2026-09-07. Minimum 25 citations in both weeks and a 0.2pp move to qualify; domains newly added to monitoring don't count as movers.
Gaining
facebook.com
3.5% → 5.4%
▲ +1.9pp
instagram.com
1.8% → 3.3%
▲ +1.5pp
tiktok.com
0.8% → 1.8%
▲ +0.9pp
youtube.com
6.1% → 6.3%
▲ +0.2pp
Declining
google.com
1.0% → 0.4%
▼ -0.6pp
reddit.com
3.1% → 2.7%
▼ -0.4pp
Google AIO'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 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | youtube.com | 6.0% | 3,421 | |
| 2 | facebook.com | 4.4% | 2,495 | |
| 3 | reddit.com | 3.8% | 2,166 | |
| 4 | instagram.com | 2.3% | 1,329 | |
| 5 | google.com | 2.1% | 1,221 | |
| 6 | tiktok.com | 1.2% | 698 | |
| 7 | quora.com | 0.5% | 258 | |
| 8 | moneysupermarket.com | 0.4% | 224 | |
| 9 | linkedin.com | 0.3% | 161 | |
| 10 | gocompare.com | 0.3% | 159 | |
| 11 | pinterest.com | 0.3% | 159 | |
| 12 | moneysavingexpert.com | 0.3% | 149 | |
| 13 | carwow.co.uk | 0.3% | 147 | |
| 14 | outdoorgearlab.com | 0.2% | 133 | |
| 15 | shopping.google.com | 0.2% | 128 | |
| 16 | wikipedia.org | 0.2% | 110 | |
| 17 | which.co.uk | 0.2% | 108 | |
| 18 | whatcar.com | 0.2% | 103 | |
| 19 | postoffice.co.uk | 0.2% | 98 | |
| 20 | forbes.com | 0.2% | 94 | |
| 21 | uaeexperthub.com | 0.2% | 88 | |
| 22 | runrepeat.com | 0.2% | 88 | |
| 23 | autofact.cl | 0.2% | 87 | |
| 24 | nsinternational.com | 0.2% | 86 | |
| 25 | carsales.com.au | 0.1% | 84 | |
| 26 | infobae.com | 0.1% | 83 | |
| 27 | gov.uk | 0.1% | 82 | |
| 28 | theguardian.com | 0.1% | 82 | |
| 29 | consumerreports.org | 0.1% | 81 | |
| 30 | mercadolibre.com.ar | 0.1% | 77 | |
| 31 | comparethemarket.com | 0.1% | 75 | |
| 32 | autoexpress.co.uk | 0.1% | 72 | |
| 33 | apple.com | 0.1% | 67 | |
| 34 | whowhatwear.com | 0.1% | 66 | |
| 35 | mercadolibre.cl | 0.1% | 64 | |
| 36 | telegraph.co.uk | 0.1% | 64 | |
| 37 | eurostar.com | 0.1% | 63 | |
| 38 | autohero.com | 0.1% | 63 | |
| 39 | cnbc.com | 0.1% | 62 | |
| 40 | usnews.com | 0.1% | 62 | |
| 41 | nerdwallet.com | 0.1% | 61 | |
| 42 | trustpilot.com | 0.1% | 61 | |
| 43 | wise.com | 0.1% | 61 | |
| 44 | yahoo.com | 0.1% | 60 | |
| 45 | uswitch.com | 0.1% | 59 | |
| 46 | samsung.com | 0.1% | 59 | |
| 47 | aviva.co.uk | 0.1% | 58 | |
| 48 | moneyhelper.org.uk | 0.1% | 58 | |
| 49 | autotrader.co.uk | 0.1% | 57 | |
| 50 | racv.com.au | 0.1% | 56 |
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
Data table
| Series | 24 Aug | 31 Aug | 7 Sept | 14 Sept |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| youtube.com | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| facebook.com | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| reddit.com | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| instagram.com | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
| google.com | 2 | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| tiktok.com | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 |
4 places lost: google.com, #2 → #6 (14 Sept)
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
Data table
| Series | 22 Jun | 29 Jun | 6 Jul | 13 Jul | 20 Jul | 27 Jul | 3 Aug | 10 Aug | 17 Aug | 24 Aug | 31 Aug | 7 Sept |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google AIO | 3.9 | 5.1 | 6.7 | 8 | 7.9 | 6.7 | 8.5 | 8.2 | 6.5 | 5.1 | 6.5 | 6 |
Methodology
- What's counted: every citation/source URL Google AIO 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 (2026-08-31 → 2026-09-07); 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.
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