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📊 How Link Laboratory Placements Perform in AI Search Citations

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Camilo Aponte

Camilo Aponte

Last updated on Oct 8, 2026

📊 Why This Matters

Search Atlas's own research team analyzed how content published through the Link Laboratory network gets cited by AI chatbots and search engines. This is directly connected to the LLM Visibility column you see in the Site Catalog when browsing publishers — it's not a marketing abstraction, it's based on real citation tracking across major AI platforms.

🔍 What the Study Covered

The study tracked 2.67 million citations across 11,136 Link Laboratory network domains, drawn from a larger dataset of 179 million citations across more than 6 million domains, collected over a three-month window. It measured citation activity across six AI platforms: ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, Grok, and Google AI Mode.

📈 Key Findings

  • About 31% of network domains picked up at least one AI citation during the study window — coverage varies a lot by site authority and niche.
  • Different platforms reward different things: Grok generated the highest raw citation volume but the lowest quality/authority score; Copilot had the strongest quality metrics (best average citation rank and score); Gemini had the highest share of voice; Perplexity balanced solid rank with strong authority scoring.
  • Technology, Computers, and Business categories accounted for the largest share of cited domains — sites in these niches tend to see the strongest AI citation activity.
  • Across the whole network, the average domain ranked around 11th position in citation results with a citation score near 33 — the top-performing domains in the network scored meaningfully above that baseline, showing that strong individual placements can outperform the network average by a wide margin.

✅ What This Means for Your Placements

  • AI citation performance isn't uniform — a placement on a strong, topically-relevant publisher in Technology, Computers, or Business is more likely to pick up AI citations than an equally-priced placement in a less AI-visible category.
  • The LLM Visibility filters and columns in the Site Catalog (covering Gemini and OpenAI, among others) let you check a specific publisher's AI-citation status before you buy a placement, rather than guessing.
  • Since different AI platforms behave differently (some reward raw volume, others reward authority and rank), it's worth treating AI-search visibility as an ongoing metric to track across placements, not a one-time check.

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.