What Drives AI Citations? Content, Retrieval and Model Knowledge in Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Generative search engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity now decide which Web pages users see as sources, and a growing industry of generative engine optimization advises publishers on how to earn these citations. We study what shapes citation in two 90-day collections of answers to commercial questions in contrasting markets: 158,099 answers with 468,037 citations. Comparing pages of the same website, content matters in one way: pages whose title and paragraphs match the questions people ask are cited more, whereas FAQ blocks, structured data, summary boxes and page speed appear effective only across websites. Page properties nevertheless explain little of the variation between p...
| Authors | Mahe Chen, Nick Koudas |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.IR |
| Published | 10 October 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 10 October 2026 |
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