Study of 20,000+ results across 16 LLMs finds the #1 AI ranking factor: relevant brand mentions
VeryWellVersed · x · 2026-10-12
SEO researcher Ben Willst analyzed 100 industries across 16 LLMs, ChatGPT's web interface, and Google AI Overviews, finding the same pattern over 20,000 times: the sites most recommended by LLMs have backlinks and brand mentions on pages more relevant to their industry — including brand mentions without a link. He argues this is the first concrete evidence (rather than intuition) of the primary ranking factor for AI search visibility, consistent with how LLMs are trained.
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