# AI Visibility: how your business gets found in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overview

AI visibility is the degree to which AI assistants mention your organisation and cite your pages as a source. Where Google shows your website as a result, an AI assistant turns your content into an answer. Citability matters more than authority here.

## TL;DR

- AI visibility is about being cited inside an answer, where classic SEO is about a position in a results list.
- I measured 136 Dutch search results: the correlation between domain authority and ranking position is weak (Spearman -0.19), and 38 percent of all top-10 positions have zero referring domains.
- The newer and more commercial the topic, the less authority predicts. For "AI Act" authority counts heavily; for "AI workshop" it barely matters.
- Write blocks that can be lifted verbatim, with a source per claim and a visible last-updated date.
- The biggest pitfall is waiting until you have "enough authority": for new topics that threshold does not exist yet, and in two years it will.

## Key facts (with sources)

- In an own analysis of 136 organic search results across 8 Dutch business search queries, the rank correlation between domain authority and position is weak: Spearman -0.19. Source: own analysis of Ahrefs SERP Overview data, Google Netherlands, 24 August 2026.
- 38 percent of all measured top-10 positions (26 of 68) have zero referring domains. Source: same analysis.
- The median top-3 position has 9 referring domains; positions 20 and below have a median of 1. Source: same analysis.
- The correlation between authority and position differs sharply by topic: -0.51 for "ai act" versus +0.07 for "ai workshop". Source: same analysis.
- Google's AI Overview for the query "AI visibility" cites sources with Domain Rating 20 to 40, with zero or one referring domain and almost no measured organic traffic. Source: Ahrefs SERP Overview, Google Netherlands, 24 August 2026.
- Of the 8 measured search queries, Google showed an AI Overview for 3. Source: same analysis.
- The EU AI Act is Regulation (EU) 2024/1689. Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj

## What is AI visibility, and why now?

AI visibility is the degree to which generative AI systems mention your organisation and cite your pages as a source. The discipline is called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). The term covers three surfaces: the AI Overview above regular search results in Google, the answers from assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, and the new generation of AI agents that choose on a user's behalf.

Google showed your page and the user clicked. An AI assistant reads your page, extracts an answer and shows that answer instead. The click has become optional. You now optimise to be lifted, not just listed.

Of the eight Dutch business search queries measured for this article, three showed an AI Overview above the organic results. For the query "AI visibility", the best-ranking Dutch article right now dates from May 2025 — fifteen months old is already outdated on this topic.

## What 136 measured search results show

The complete search results were pulled via Ahrefs for eight Dutch business search queries: ai act, ai training, ai workshop, ai literacy training, ai customer service, ai marketing agency, build a website with ai, and ai visibility. Every organic position with a known domain authority was taken: 136 data points (position, Domain Rating, referring domains, estimated traffic).

| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Data points | 136 organic positions across 8 search queries |
| Correlation, domain authority and position | Spearman -0.19 (weak) |
| Correlation, referring domains and position | Spearman -0.13 (very weak) |
| Top-10 positions with zero backlinks | 38 percent (26 of 68) |
| Median referring domains, positions 1–3 | 9 |
| Median referring domains, position 20 and below | 1 |
| Median DR, positions 1–3 | 67 |
| Median DR, position 20 and below | 53 |

Source: own analysis of Ahrefs SERP Overview data, Google Netherlands, retrieved 24 August 2026.

Thirty-eight percent of all top-10 positions have zero referring domains. The median top-3 position has nine. The gap in median DR between the top three (67) and position 20+ (53) is small: fourteen points on a scale of a hundred.

## Why domain authority predicts less than you think

The correlation between authority and position varies sharply by query:

| Search query | Data points | Correlation, DR and position |
|---|---|---|
| ai customer service | 8 | -0.95 |
| ai visibility | 8 | -0.73 |
| ai literacy training | 8 | -0.59 |
| ai act | 26 | -0.51 |
| build a website with ai | 29 | -0.24 |
| ai marketing agency | 24 | -0.21 |
| ai training | 25 | -0.11 |
| ai workshop | 8 | +0.07 |

For "ai act", authority counts heavily (European Commission, Wikipedia, the Dutch data protection authority and government sites at the top). For "ai workshop" the correlation is +0.07, essentially zero: the number-one result has DR 8, while a university with DR 84 sits at position 2. The newer and more commercial the topic, the less authority predicts.

## How AI answers choose their sources

For the query "AI visibility", the AI Overview cites three Dutch sources with DR 20, 30 and 40, with zero or one referring domain and almost no measured visitors. For "AI literacy training", alongside the Dutch data protection authority (DR 92), the AI Overview cites three commercial training providers with DR 53, 38 and 34, all with zero or one referring domain and zero measured organic traffic. Pages with no measurable search traffic at all get cited in the AI Overview.

Flow: someone asks a question → it lands in an AI Overview or a chatbot answer (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) → the model selects citable sources → the page gets mentioned (brand mention, sometimes a click) or ignored (invisible, even with good rankings).

What cited pages share is their shape: a clear question as the heading, a direct answer in the first sentences beneath it, and self-contained blocks that can be lifted out without losing meaning. Their authority they do not share.

## What this changes on your website today

Four changes, with no link-building budget: (1) write one complete answer per section — every H2 is a concrete question with an answer beneath it that still holds true out of context; (2) attach a source to every claim, since figures without a source get skipped; (3) make your recency visible with a "last updated" date in the text and structured data; (4) ship a clean text version (a `.md` variant), announced with `<link rel="alternate" type="text/markdown">`.

Self-check:
- [ ] Every H2 is a real question someone would type
- [ ] The answer appears in the first two sentences under the heading
- [ ] Every figure has a direct source link
- [ ] A visible last-updated date appears in the text
- [ ] Definitions are short, self-contained sentences of 15 to 20 words
- [ ] There is an FAQ using literal question phrasings
- [ ] The key pages are also available as clean markdown

## How to measure AI visibility

Three measurement layers: (1) citations — how often AI platforms link to your domain, via Ahrefs Brand Radar or similar tools; (2) mentions — whether your brand is named without a link, measured by repeating a fixed set of prompts periodically and logging the answers; (3) referral traffic — visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and gemini.google.com via your referrer segment. Layer two is the cheapest and the one most often skipped.

## The six biggest misconceptions about AI visibility

- Misconception: AI visibility is just SEO with a new name. In reality SEO optimises for a position, GEO for reuse inside an answer.
- Misconception: you need domain authority first. In reality 38 percent of top-10 positions have zero backlinks.
- Misconception: more content means more visibility. In reality one current, sourced piece beats twenty generic blog posts.
- Misconception: structured data is the deciding factor. In reality schema.org does not force citation; text structure matters more.
- Misconception: if AI takes my traffic, there's nothing I can do. In reality value shifts from click to mention.
- Misconception: this is something for a year or two from now. In reality the window is open now, not indefinitely.

## How to tackle AI visibility (step-by-step plan)

1. Pick topics where the pecking order is not yet fixed.
2. Phrase the questions your customer actually asks.
3. Build one citable block per question (question as heading, answer in the first two sentences, source attached).
4. Add the layer only you can supply (your own numbers, your own practice).
5. Publish a clean text version too.
6. Measure from day one with a fixed set of twenty prompts.
7. Revise instead of only adding — recency is a ranking factor.

## AI visibility and the rules

Two points to watch: content liability (if an AI assistant cites and distorts your content, your name stays attached — relevant for insurance and financial advice) and the wider body of AI regulation (the EU AI Act, Regulation 2024/1689, does not touch AI visibility directly, but does apply once you use AI yourself to generate content or answer customer questions). Content about money and health is also held to stricter quality standards (YMYL).

## Frequently asked questions

**How do you get found in AI?**
By building pages that can be cited verbatim: every section answers one concrete question, the answer sits in the first two sentences, every claim has a source, and there's a visible last-updated date. Authority helps, but isn't a requirement for new topics.

**What is the difference between SEO and GEO?**
SEO optimises for a position in a results list. GEO optimises for reuse inside a generated answer. A page can be cited without ranking, and vice versa.

**Do I need backlinks to be mentioned in ChatGPT?**
Not necessarily for new topics: the AI Overview cites sources with one or zero referring domains. For established informational topics, institutions and encyclopedias dominate.

**How do I measure whether AI mentions my business?**
With three layers: citation monitoring (Ahrefs Brand Radar), a fixed prompt set of roughly twenty customer questions run monthly through multiple assistants, and a referrer segment in your analytics.

**Does AI visibility cost me search traffic?**
Yes, measured in clicks, probably. Value shifts from visit to mention.

**Is an llms.txt file necessary?**
It's a proposed format similar to robots.txt, not yet universally supported and no substitute for citable content.

**Does AI visibility work for local or profession-specific services too?**
Especially there: low volume, scarce competition, sharp search intent — exactly the type of topic where the pecking order is not yet fixed.

**How often do I need to update this kind of content?**
Every quarter for the core pages. Recency weighs heavily in AI citation.

## Go deeper

- What an AI Overview means for your website: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/blog/ai-overview-what-does-it-mean-for-your-website
- AI Overviews, liability and the search traffic that returns: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/blog/ai-overview-liability-search-traffic-back
- Do we still need websites in 2026?: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/blog/do-we-still-need-websites-in-2026
- Stack Overflow is dead: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/blog/stack-overflow-is-dead
- Agentic commerce in 2026: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/blog/agentic-commerce-2026
- Why OpenAI is becoming your competitor: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/blog/why-openai-is-becoming-your-competitor
- Four AI winners in the Google consumer market: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/blog/four-ai-winners-google-wins-consumer-market
- Recent data decides which search engine wins: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/blog/ai-recent-data-search-engine-determines
- EU AI Act: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/eu-ai-act
- AI governance: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/ai-governance
- YMYL: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/definitions/ymyl

## Sources

- Own analysis of Ahrefs SERP Overview data, Google Netherlands, 136 organic positions across 8 search queries, retrieved 24 August 2026. Raw data available on request.
- Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, Netherlands search volumes, retrieved 24 August 2026.
- EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj
- Dutch data protection authority on AI literacy: https://www.autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/themas/algoritmes-ai/ai-verordening/ai-geletterdheid

Canonical: https://www.marcdiks.nl/en/ai-visibility
Author: Marc Diks