Inside the AI Ranking Factors Shaping Your Experiences on ChatGPT, Google, Copilot, & More

Overview: Perplexity is one of the first AI search engines — also called answer engines — and uses OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s LLMs to power its answers, which include source citations and related questions (similar to Google’s People Also Ask).

Models: GPT-4 Omni, Claude 3

Ranking factors

The most notable ranking factors for Perplexity include:

• Site authority, or the number and quality of backlinks to your site.
• Online reputation, or the reviews and ratings surrounding your brand.
• Organic search rankings, or how well your site ranks in search results like Google.

In our research, we’ve found a correlation between Perplexity’s and Google’s rankings. It’s worth mentioning that Perplexity uses its crawler (PerplexityBot) and other unnamed third-party crawlers to generate its search results.

Optimization tactics

Answer engine optimization tactics for Perplexity include:

1. Allow Perplexity’s crawler, PerplexityBot, to crawl your site
2. Follow SEO best practices with an emphasis on Google’s ranking factors
3. Use reputation management to attract online reviews
4. Grow site authority by attracting backlinks with unique content, tools, and research

Overview: SearchGPT comes from OpenAI, the team behind ChatGPT, and blends online information from the web with the company’s GPT models. Like Perplexity, SearchGPT includes citations to its sources.

Models: OpenAI’s GPT models

Ranking factors

When considering SearchGPT’s ranking factors, it’s important to remember the platform is still in beta, with limited access available. Our initial research found a strong correlation between SearchGPT’s and Bing’s search results, which suggests that SEO is important.

Optimization tactics

Optimization tactics for the beta version of SearchGPT should focus on SEO best practices like:

1. Allowing OpenAI’s crawlers to crawl your website
2. Producing helpful (and unique) content that uses relevant search queries
3. Creating an easy-to-use and fast website

For more insights into getting started with SEO, check out our SEO Checklist.

Overview: Besides being integrated into Microsoft’s product suite for businesses, educators, and everyday users, Microsoft Copilot is also available via the company’s search engine, Bing. With Copilot, users can converse with the platform and visit cited content.

Models: GPT-4, DALL-E

Ranking factors

According to Bing, “the sources Copilot uses to form its answers are derived from the same ranking of third-party search results as the main web search results page.” Those results (of course) come from the search engine’s algorithms and ranking systems.

The most important elements in Bing’s ranking systems include the following:

• Relevance, or how closely the content aligns with the user’s search intent.
• Quality and credibility, or the site’s reputation, purpose, and backlink profile.
• User engagement, or whether users remained on the site or returned to the results.
• Freshness, or whether the content provides up-to-date information.
• Location and language, or content’s alignment with the user’s location and language.
• Page load time, or how fast the content loads.

These elements align with other search engines and their ranking factors, like Google.

Optimization tactics

Become more visible in Microsoft Copilot conversations with these optimization tactics:

1. Improve search engine optimization signals
2. Write content in your target audience’s preferred language
3. Invest in content refreshes — and enhance it with trust signals, like citations

From our research, we’ve found specific SEO optimizations have a bigger impact, like:

• Attracting backlinks from reputable websites
• Getting online mentions (whether linked or unlinked) from trusted sites
• Producing unique and helpful content that follows SEO best practices

You can learn more about these optimizations in our Off-Page SEO Guide!

Overview: Developed by Google, Gemini operates as an AI chatbot and assistant. People can use Gemini to create images, ask questions, and streamline day-to-day tasks in Google Workspace products. Like Microsoft Copilot, Gemini includes citations with its responses.

Models: Gemini Ultra, Gemini Pro, Gemini Nano

Ranking factors

As Google’s dedicated AI chatbot, it’s no surprise there is a correlation between Gemini responses and Google search results. Not to mention, when Gemini checks its responses, it uses Google to verify the information.

Optimization tactics

Effective optimization tactics for Gemini include:

1. Following Google’s recommendations for SEO
2. Building an authoritative online reputation via a strong backlink profile
3. Using structured data to help search engines and LLMs understand your content

Overview: Meta AI provides Facebook and Instagram users with new ways to discover content on two of the biggest social media platforms. Besides discovery, people can also use Meta AI to create media.

Models: Llama 3.2, Llama 3.1

Ranking factors

Meta AI’s ranking factors include:

• Bing’s organic search results, or how well your site ranks on Bing.
• Post relevance, or how relevant a post is to your question or prompt.
• Post engagement, or how much engagement (comments or likes) a post gets.
• User behavior, or who you follow, who you engage with on the platform, etc.

Note: Meta AI’s responses will vary in sharing social content vs. other content on the web.

Optimization tactics

Optimization tactics for appearing in Meta AI responses include the following:

1. Follow SEO best practices for Bing
2. Use social media marketing best practices to gain traction on Meta’s networks
3. Engage with users in post descriptions and comments

For more tips, check out our walkthrough on how to improve your visibility in Meta AI.

Overview: As one of the most popular AI platforms, OpenAI’s ChatGPT plays a critical role in today’s user journey. With ChatGPT, users can ask questions, upload files, and generate images. ChatGPT varies in providing citations.

Models: GPT-4o, o1-preview, o1-mini, GPT-4, GPT-4o mini

Ranking factors

Ranking factors for appearing in ChatGPT responses include:

• Relevancy, or how relevant your business is to the question or prompt.
• Brand mentions, or how often (and where) your brand gets mentioned online.
• Online reputation, or how users rate and review your brand across datasets.

If using ChatGPT’s Browse with Bing feature, your rankings in Bing’s organic search results will influence whether ChatGPT cites your website. That’s because ChatGPT “formulates a keyword search based on your prompt,” submits it to Bing, and retrieves relevant results.

Optimization tactics

Optimization tactics for ChatGPT’s ranking factors include the following:

1. Improving SEO rankings on Bing
2. Acquiring more online mentions via unique content, tools, and research
3. Generating online reviews across directories

Learn more about appearing in this AI chatbot in our guide on How to Rank on ChatGPT. You can check our tips on how to track your AI search visibility.

Overview: AI Overviews appear in Google Search above its organic search results. While not available for all searches, AI Overviews include citations, allowing users to explore the referenced websites.

Models: PaLM2, MUM, Gemini

Ranking factors

Ranking factors for AI Overviews include:

• Google’s core ranking systems: Got search engine optimization? You’ll need it with Google’s AI Overviews, which repurpose the company’s core ranking systems for search, like the Helpful content system, Link analysis system, and Reviews system.
• Google databases: Google also uses its Google Shopping Graph and Knowledge Graph databases to generate AI Overviews. According to Google, AI Overviews are “built on Google’s Shopping Graph.”
• Search topic: Sensitive topics — think Your Money, Your Life (YMYL) — also serve as an AI ranking factor. According to Google, there are higher standards for YMYL AI Overviews and ensuring the generated response is “corroborated by reliable sources.”
• Search intent: Based on Google’s documentation, AI Overviews aim to “help people quickly get an overview on a topic,” which makes it important for a business’s online content to answer its intended search intent.
• Structured data: Just as web crawlers get more information about a URL via structured data, so do the LLMs powering Google’s AI Overviews. Businesses can improve their search rankings and visibility in AI Overviews with structured data.

Optimization tactics

Get found in AI Overviews with these optimization tactics:

1. Practice ongoing search engine optimization
2. Enter Google Knowledge Graph and/or Google Shopping Graph
3. Use structured data (where applicable)
4. Improve content readability scores
5. Get featured on other websites that appear in AI Overviews

For more information on these techniques, check out our guide on How to Rank in AI Overviews.

Overview: Like AI Overviews in Google Search, AI-powered summaries appear above organic search results on Bing. These AI-powered answers include citations, so users can investigate the cited sources.

Models: DALL-E, GPT-4

Ranking factors

Like its cousin, Microsoft Copilot, AI-powered summaries in Bing also use the search engine’s ranking systems. As the Bing team explains, these summaries combine “the foundation of Bing’s search results with the power of large and small language models.”

Optimization tactics

Since Bing’s AI-powered summaries and Microsoft Copilot experience use the same ranking factors, re-use those optimization tactics. As a refresher, these tactics focus on search engine optimization best practices like:

1. Building a reputable backlink profile
2. Producing unique and helpful content (and keeping it updated)
3. Writing content in your target market’s preferred language

Learn more about targeting this AI experience with our guide to Bing’s generative search.

Overview: DuckAssist is similar to Bing’s AI-powered summaries and Google’s AI Overviews. Users get a summarized answer to their search — based on reputable content from the web — and citations to the referenced sources.

Models: OpenAI’s GPT models, Anthropic’s Claude models

Ranking factors

Compared to other AI-powered experiences in search, DuckAssist is unique because it scans the web in real time (using the DuckAssistBot crawler) and then generates a summarized response to the user’s search.

From our experience, we’ve found the most impactful ranking factors for DuckAssist are:

• Your content’s readability
• Your organic search rankings for the specific search query or related terms
• Your website’s reputation and/or online authority

Optimization tactics

Get linked in DuckAssist summaries with these optimization tactics:

1. Allow the DuckAssistBot to crawl your site
2. Improve content readability (a readability test tool can help here)
3. Use SEO best practices to grow your organic rankings

Learn more about practicing search engine optimization with our SEO Basics Guide.