citelity.
The citelity blog

How AI search picks its sources, and what to do about it.

Guides on answer engine optimization for people who run content sites. Every claim links to its source; where nobody has measured something, we say so.

Featured · Lost traffic · 15 min readClicks dropped but rankings didn't: how to tell an AI Overview from a core update in Search ConsoleClicks fell while average position held? Four Search Console checks separate an AI Overview taking the click from a core or spam update, with every confirmed 2026 Google update date.Read the article

Lost traffic

Clicks fell, citations disappeared, zero-click searches: telling the causes apart.

Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 13 minAI Overview citation disappeared: is it real or just noise?Lost an AI Overview citation? Sample the query before you change anything, check Search Console's AI report and Google's 2026 update calendar, then work through the causes in order of likely impact.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 13 minZero-click search: 68% of US searches end on Google. Which pages lose most?68% of US Google searches ended without a click in early 2026. How that was measured, what AI Overviews cost in CTR, which pages are exposed, and the opt-out.

AI engines

How ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude find and cite sources.

Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 8 minClaude-SearchBot vs ClaudeBot vs Claude-User: what to allowAnthropic runs three crawlers, and Claude's web search also draws on Brave. What each bot does, what blocking it costs according to Anthropic, and how to check Claude can see you.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 7 minGoogle-Extended vs Googlebot: what actually controls Gemini citationsBlocking Google-Extended doesn't touch AI Overviews, but it can keep you out of the Gemini app's grounded answers. Google's three controls, the surfaces each one governs, and how to test Gemini.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 10 minHow to get into Google AI Overviews now that the top 10 isn't the gateMost AI Overview citations now come from outside Google's top 10. What Google documents about source selection, what a citation is worth in clicks, and the new Search Console opt-out.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 7 minHow Perplexity picks its sources, and the two bots behind itPerplexity sends two different bots to your site and cites sources on nearly every answer. What each bot does, why its citations track organic traffic more closely than other engines', and how to measure it.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 9 minHow to get cited by ChatGPT: OpenAI's index, its bots and the oddsChatGPT search blends OpenAI's own index with third-party results. Which OpenAI bots to allow, how often ChatGPT cites anything, and which retrieved pages it actually quotes.

Structured data

What markup still earns rich results in 2026, and what it does for AI answers.

Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 11 minArticle schema with author: the Person markup and the bio page behind itGoogle lists no required Article properties, but author is the one worth doing properly. Working BlogPosting and ProfilePage JSON-LD, Google's own author rules, and what the markup can't do.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 10 minBreadcrumbList JSON-LD in the Next.js App RouterBreadcrumbList still earns a desktop rich result (Google dropped mobile breadcrumbs in January 2025). Google's actual rules, a working App Router component, and the mistakes that matter.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 9 minReview schema for affiliate sites, after Google's incentivized-review ruleSince July 2026 Google's review snippet guidelines rule out undisclosed incentivized reviews. What affiliate reviewers need to disclose, the Review markup Google accepts, and the rules affiliates trip over.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 10 minFAQ rich results are gone (May 2026): what FAQ markup still does and doesn't doGoogle stopped showing FAQ rich results on 7 May 2026 and removed the documentation in June. What FAQPage markup still does, what it never did, and whether to keep it.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 12 minSchema markup and AI Overviews: what Google actually saysGoogle's May 2026 guide says no special schema is needed for AI Overviews, and Google Search doesn't use llms.txt. What markup still does, which rich results remain after more than ten retirements, and how to measure AI visibility.

Measurement & tools

Tracking citations you can trust, and the tools that do it.

Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 10 minTracking AI citations: how many runs make a rate you can trustAI answers cite different sources from one run to the next, so tracking means estimating a rate. How many runs and prompts make that rate trustworthy, what the engines report directly, and what the tools cost.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 18 minBest AEO tools in 2026: prices checked, limits stated, written by a competitorHubSpot, Semrush, Ahrefs, Profound, Peec, Otterly, Scrunch, AirOps and more: what each AEO tool does, what it costs today, and which job it fits.

Strategy

Answer engine optimization from the ground up, for different kinds of sites.

Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 8 minSaaS AEO strategy: decision-stage content that gets citedB2B buyers ask comparison, alternatives and pricing questions, and AI answers increasingly cover them. Where a SaaS team's effort pays off, and the 2026 risk in self-ranking comparison pages.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 11 minIndie founder SEO: what building in public can and can't do for a new domainA new domain won't rank for head terms in its first months. What a solo founder can build instead: a verifiable identity, specific public work others reference, and a few deep pages.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 10 minAEO content checklist: 47 checks, from crawler access to quarterly upkeep47 AEO checks in the order you do them: retrievability (now including Search Console's AI control), planning, structure, schema, authorship, validation, upkeep.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 14 minAEO for affiliate sites: the citation and recovery playbookWhat gets an affiliate review cited in AI answers, what the 2026 spam and review rules changed, and a corrected checklist for rebuilding a site that lost traffic.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 8 minAEO vs SEO on a small site: which to do first, and how to split the hoursOn a small site, SEO comes first and AEO is a thin layer on pages that already rank. How to sort pages in Search Console, a 10-hour week, and measuring both.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 11 minDoes GEO work? The KDD paper vs the C-SEO Bench replicationGenerative engine optimization began with a 2023 paper claiming gains of up to 40%. A 2025 benchmark retested its methods on four models. Here's what held up.Updated Oct 1, 2026 · 16 minAnswer engine optimization (AEO): what it is and what gets a page citedAnswer engine optimization (not the customs Authorized Economic Operator): how AI engines choose sources, which factors have evidence, and what to fix first.