Sarah Berry is a Lead Web Marketing Consultant at one of the largest digital marketing agencies in the USA — WebFX. With more than 10,000 hours of experience, she offers practical insights and strategies to grow your digital revenue. Her work has been cited by Michigan State University, Business Insider, and Ars Technica. When she isn’t polishing her Time Magazine Person of the Year Award, she’s spending time with her flock of ducks.
AI-powered search is changing how visibility works online.
You’ve done everything right — optimized for SEO, earned backlinks, and published helpful content. But AI-powered searches still skip over your brand.
If ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google’s AI Overviews aren’t mentioning you, your traffic loss isn’t a mystery — it’s a message. And you’re not alone: A quarter of searches are already zero-click.
These platforms don’t just mirror traditional search engine optimization (SEO) rules. They use their own systems, which are powered by AI search ranking factors that decide what gets cited, summarized, or ignored.
To meet users where they are, you need to understand how these systems work. Since 2023, our team has been studying how AI platforms choose what to surface and what it takes to show up in them.
Buckle up as we’ve decoded the key AI ranking factors, along with proven ways to boost your visibility in AI-powered search. Let’s dive into the details:
AI ranking factors are the signals that AI-powered search experiences (such as Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode) and answer engines (like Perplexity and ChatGPT) use to decide what content to include in generated answers, summaries, and citations.
Traditional search engines primarily rank pages based on relevance and authority signals, and then present a list of links for searchers to choose from. On the other hand, AI-powered searches go a step further by evaluating large sets of content and choosing which sources to reference when responding to a question.
In practice, AI-powered searches evaluate these signals:
Content relevance to inquiries
Depth and accuracy
Authority and trust
Structure and readability
Consistency across sources
One necessary clarification: AI ranking factors are not a checklist. There isn’t a single formula you can follow to “optimize for AI.
AI-powered search evaluates multiple signals together, which means visibility depends on whether your content is clear, well-structured, trusted, and suited to address a particular query.
🎥 Video: 5 Important Factors that Impact Google AI Overviews
6 core AI ranking factors that influence visibility
AI visibility doesn’t hinge on a single signal. Instead, AI-powered search evaluates a combination of factors to decide which content is most helpful to surface for a given query.
The ranking factors below reflect the signals marketers can most directly influence. You don’t need to optimize for all of them at once, but understanding how they work together will help you prioritize improvements that actually affect visibility:
AI-assisted searches and answer engines are built to answer questions.
If your content doesn’t directly address the intent behind a query, AI-powered search tools are unlikely to surface it — even if the page ranks well organically.
AI-powered searches look for the following:
Clear answers early on the page
A focused topic rather than broad coverage
Supporting context that anticipates follow-up questions
If someone asks an AI search tool for the best action camera for long-distance cycling, content that addresses battery life, mounting stability, weather resistance, and vibration is more useful than a generic “best action cameras” list. Even if both pages rank well, the cyclist-focused guide is more likely to be cited because it aligns with search intent.
What you can do to improve content quality
“The biggest misconception about improving content quality is that you have to make content appeal to AI by not being conversational and by just giving answers that don’t appeal to human readers,” says Abby F., SEO Consultant at WebFX. “The best way to optimize for AI is to create genuinely helpful, high-quality content and give users a good experience.
Using our example earlier, if you want your action camera to get mentioned for relevant searches, here are tips:
Match content to a specific search intent: Identify the exact questions your audience is asking and shape the page around that use case instead of a broad category.
Explain why your product or content fits that query: Don’t just list features. Instead, connect your product’s features to your audience’s needs.
Use features as proof of suitability: For example, if you want your action camera mentioned when someone asks for the best camera for cyclists, your product page should clearly explain how long the battery lasts on long rides, how stabilization handles road vibration, and how the mounting options work on a bike.
2. Authority and trust signals
AI search tools often infer trust from patterns. High rankings or backlinks alone don’t guarantee visibility if other trust signals are weak.
Authority signals you must note are:
Consistent brand mentions across credible sources
Citations from reputable websites
Original research or expert commentary
Strong reputation supported by reviews
This is where traditional SEO continues to play a role because it determines whether your content is eligible to be cited in the first place. Factors like backlinks, topical authority, and crawlability help AI-powered search tools discover and evaluate your pages.
Once your content is eligible, rankings alone don’t determine what gets cited. AI-powered search is more likely to choose content that demonstrates authority in the context of the specific query, not just authority in general.
In practice, this means authority signals need to reinforce why your content is a credible source for that topic. Pages are more likely to be cited when they:
Demonstrate subject-matter expertise through depth, specificity, or original insight
Are referenced or mentioned by other credible sources in the same topic area
Show consistent expertise across related content, not just on a single page.
In our earlier example of the action camera, if a brand wants its product cited when someone asks for the best camera for cyclists, authority comes from showing real expertise in that context.
That might mean doing the following:
Publishing cyclist-focused product guides, such as mounting or capturing excellent videos while riding
Creating articles that explain how their stabilization performs on rough roads and how their battery performs on long rides
Earning mentions from cycling publications and reviewers
Over time, this kind of focused, topic-specific coverage helps AI-powered search associate the brand with cycling use cases.
3. Structured content and clarity
Structure is one of the most overlooked — and most influential — AI ranking factors.
AI search tools parse content more effectively when it’s clearly organized. Pages with strong structure reduce ambiguity and make it easier for AI to extract reliable information.
To improve your site’s structure:
Use clear heading hierarchies, such as H2s and H3s
Use lists, tables, and summaries to help readers (and even bots) skim your content
Use relevant schema markup
For example, two pages may cover the same topic with similar depth. The page that includes a summary, descriptive headings, and structured sections is more likely to be cited than one with dense paragraphs and vague headers.
Expert insights from
Abby F.SEO Consultant at WebFX
“Checking that your content answers search intent, is structured and has up-to-date information, and also includes schema markup are high-impact optimizations to make.”
4. User experience and accessibility signals
Answer engines inherit many assumptions from traditional search engines.
Poor user experience often correlates with low-quality or unreliable content, which makes user experience (UX) an indirect but meaningful signal for AI visibility.
Give your users a pleasant user experience with these tips:
Improve your page speed
Make your website mobile-friendly
Use readable font sizes and user-friendly layouts
Use clear spacing and scannable formatting
Improving readability and accessibility not only helps users but also increases the likelihood that answer engines will treat your content as trustworthy and usable.
5. Freshness, accuracy, and consistency
AI-powered search prefers content it can trust to reflect the current state of a topic. When information appears outdated, incomplete, or inconsistent, AI search tools are less likely to mention or cite it, even if the page ranks well organically.
This ranking factor matters because many AI answers rely on facts, examples, and guidance that can change over time. Content that shows signs of recent review and validation is more likely to be treated as reliable.
To keep your content fresh for AI’s eyes, here are some dos and don’ts.
Do:
Keep statistics, examples, screenshots, and product references current
Add a visible “last updated” date to your important pages
Review high-impact pages on a regular schedule so outdated information doesn’t linger
Don’t:
Let evergreen pages go untouched for years
Reference tools, features, or data that no longer exist
Update dates without actually revising the content
For AI visibility, freshness is about maintaining credibility over time. Pages that appear actively maintained are easier for AI-powered search to trust and reuse.
6. Brand signals and online reputation
AI-powered search evaluates credibility by looking beyond individual pages. It pays attention to how consistently and credibly a brand appears across the web when deciding which sources to cite.
This ranking factor matters because AI-powered search tools want to reference sources that look established, legitimate, and supported by external validation, not just content that claims expertise on its own site.
Brands that show up consistently across trusted sources give AI-powered search more confidence when choosing what to cite.
What marketers should do to improve online reputation
Earn reviews and ratings on platforms your buyers actually use
Publish expert-led content or original research that others can reference
Secure relevant third-party mentions from credible publications or industry sources
Keep brand information consistent across your website and external profiles
Do not buy links, mentions, or reviews. Artificially inflating your online reputation can hurt your brand over time.
Expert insight: How to track AI search visibility
Knowing the AI ranking factors is step one. But how do you actually track AI search rankings and check if you’re showing up in AI-powered results? While there’s no universal dashboard yet, here are a few ways to start keeping tabs:
Manual checks: Run prompts in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Google like “best [product/service] in [location]” or “top [service] providers.” Look for brand mentions, summaries, or links, and track them in a spreadsheet.
Google Search Console: Go to Performance → Search results → +New filter → Search appearance. If available, select AI Overview to view impressions, clicks, queries, and URLs included in AI snippets.
Semrush & Ahrefs: Use their SERP feature filters (like AI Overview) to see which of your keywords trigger AI summaries, and whether your pages are cited in those results.
OmniSEO®: Track your visibility and your competitors’ across AI search experiences with this AI search visibility software. Plus, receive actionable insights into improving your citations and brand mentions across ChatGPT, AI Overviews, and other LLMs.
GA4 (Google Analytics 4): Create a custom channel group labeled Generative AI using source filters like chat.openai.com, perplexity.ai, and others. This lets you track referral traffic from AI tools.
Why organic rankings alone no longer explain AI visibility
Traditional SEO and AI-powered search rely on many of the same signals, but they apply them differently. The table below highlights where their approaches overlap and where they diverge — especially in how content is evaluated and used to answer a specific question.
How traditional SEO and AI-powered search differ
Area of comparison
Traditional SEO
AI-powered search
What the user sees
Ranked list of links
Generated answers that may include citations or brand mentions
How relevance is determined
Pages are evaluated and ranked based on search intent and ranking signals
Content is assessed against a specific query to decide what information to include
Role of search intent
Guides how pages are evaluated and ranked
Determines whether content can be used to answer the specific question
Role of content structure
Improves usability and can support rankings
Enables accurate extraction and presentation of information in answers
Role of authority signals
Builds trust and supports long-term visibility
Helps determine whether the content is credible enough to reference
What visibility means
Appearing higher in search results
Being mentioned, cited, or reflected in an AI-generated response
How to prioritize AI ranking factor optimization
AI ranking factors don’t work in isolation, making prioritization essential. When teams try to optimize everything at once, it becomes harder to track and understand which strategy is actually driving results.
A better approach is to think in optimization phases. Each phase builds on the previous one, starting with what you want to be visible for, then improving how your content is evaluated, trusted, and validated over time:
This helps teams focus on changes that actually influence whether their content gets mentioned or cited in AI-generated answers.
Phase 0: Choose the queries you want AI visibility for
Before optimizing anything, decide where AI visibility would actually matter for your business.
AI-powered search doesn’t surface content evenly across a site. It responds to specific questions. If you don’t define which queries you want to show up for, it’s easy to spend time optimizing pages that have little impact on revenue or qualified demand.
Start by identifying a short list of high-priority queries, such as:
Product comparisons
“Best X for Y” questions
Pricing and alternatives
Decision-stage questions your ideal customers ask
Then map each query to the page you want AI-powered search to reference. If the page doesn’t exist or if the content doesn’t match the intent of the question, that’s the first issue to address.
Using our earlier example of an action camera company. Its team can start by identifying the questions it wants to be visible for, such as the the best action camera for cyclists, an action camera for long rides, or an the affordable action camera for cycling.
Each query is mapped to a page that the company wants AI-powered search to reference. In this case, a product page or comparison page designed for cyclists, not a general blog post.
This phase ensures your optimization efforts are tied to real business value.
Phase 1: Make your pages fit the questions being asked
Once you’ve identified the queries that matter, focus on whether the mapped pages actually address them.
AI-powered search evaluates content at the query level. Pages that only loosely relate to a question are unlikely to be selected, even if they rank well.
At this stage, review whether the page:
Answers the core question early
Reflects the user’s constraints or use case
Covers the most likely follow-up questions
If a page doesn’t clearly fit the question it’s meant to support, no amount of downstream optimization will compensate for that mismatch.
Let’s see how this works for our fictional action camera company. The team reviews its cyclist-focused product page and realizes it mostly lists technical specs. To better fit the query, they update the page to:
Explain why battery life matters for long rides
Describe how stabilization performs on rough roads
Show how the camera mounts securely on a bike
Highlight its competitive pricing
The page now directly supports the question “best action camera for cyclists,” rather than assuming users will make that connection themselves.
Phase 2: Make your content easier to use and trust
After a page fits the query, the next priority is helping users quickly understand and trust the information. Content that does this well is also easier for AI-powered search to evaluate and reference.
Well-organized content reduces ambiguity and makes it easier for systems to pull accurate information into an answer. At the same time, credibility signals help reinforce that the content is safe to reference.
In this phase, focus on:
Structuring content so key information is easy to identify
Supporting claims with credible sources or expert input where appropriate
Ensuring the page reflects real subject-matter knowledge
These improvements help AI-powered search decide how and whether to use the content once it’s considered.
Phase 3: Build online reputation and credibility over time
Online reputation signals develop more gradually than on-page improvements, which is why they are prioritized later in the process.
AI-powered search looks beyond your website when deciding which sources to reference. Reviews, third-party mentions, and credible coverage help reinforce that your brand is trusted outside of your own content and that other organizations recognize you for it.
In practice, this phase is about consistent reputation-building activities, not a one-and-done digital PR activity. This phase involves:
Earning reviews from real customers who actually purchased and use your product
Securing mentions or coverage from credible industry publications
Being included in third-party comparisons, recommendations, or “best of” lists that align with your core use cases.
These signals don’t usually create immediate changes on their own. Instead, they strengthen long-term credibility and make it easier for AI-powered search to trust and reference your content when relevant questions arise.
Let’s look at our fictional action camera company example. Over time, the company can build its reputation within cycling communities by:
Earning reviews from cyclists who use the camera on long rides
Being mentioned in cycling publications and gear reviews
Appearing in third-party “best cameras for cyclists” roundups
As these trust signals accumulate, AI-powered search is more likely to associate the brand with cycling-specific use cases, making future content easier to cite when similar questions are asked.
Yes. Traditional SEO factors still matter because they determine whether your content is discoverable and eligible to be considered in the first place. Strong SEO tactics (including technical health, content quality, and backlinks) increase your chances of being cited in AI responses.
To adapt to AI search experiences, use OmniSEO®. OmniSEO® focuses on making your business visible across a variety of online channels, from traditional search engines to social media to LLMs and the AI search experiences they power.
Not exactly. You can’t submit your site to LLMs directly, but you can boost your chances of being surfaced by how well content answers a question, how easy it is to interpret, and whether it appears credible. There isn’t a set of tactics that works exclusively for one tool and not others.
Trying to “optimize for ChatGPT” or “optimize for Gemini” often leads teams to chase surface-level patterns instead of improving their content’s substance.
Focus on creating content that clearly answers real user questions, reflects genuine expertise, and is easy to understand. Those qualities travel better across platforms than platform-specific tricks.
AI results vary by platform because each experience is designed with different goals, constraints, and presentation models. In addition, each AI experience is powered by different large language models (LLMs) and data sources.
AI visibility tools like OmniSEO® can effectively monitor your brand’s visibility in various AI searches and answer engines like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, and more.
If you’re seeing impressions, it means you’re being cited — and with the right AI SEO optimization, you can scale that visibility further.
Become the brand AI can’t ignore
AI platforms are shaping the next generation of brand discovery. But here’s the catch: They’re selective. And if your content doesn’t match these AI ranking factors, it gets skipped — even if you’re #1 in Google.
At WebFX, we don’t just follow the future of search — we help shape it.
With over 30+ years of digital marketing expertise, we’ve engineered a first-class generative engine optimization (GEO) strategy designed to get your business cited, surfaced, and seen across today’s leading AI platforms.
When you partner with us, you’ll get:
A personalized roadmap to earn placement in AI-driven results
Data-driven optimization that bridges traditional SEO with AI-powered search
A dedicated strategist backed by over 750 subject-matter experts
RevenueCloudFX access to track AI visibility, engagement, and ROI in real time
The rules of search are changing at a breakneck pace. Let’s make sure AI picks your brand first. Contact us online or call 888-601-5359to speak with a strategist today about our high-impact GEO services.
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Sarah Berry is a Lead Web Marketing Consultant at one of the largest digital marketing agencies in the USA — WebFX. With more than 10,000 hours of experience, she offers practical insights and strategies to grow your digital revenue. Her work has been cited by Michigan State University, Business Insider, and Ars Technica. When she isn’t polishing her Time Magazine Person of the Year Award, she’s spending time with her flock of ducks.
