AEO research and studies
From AEO.wiki, the Answer Engine Optimization reference · Last reviewed · By Simon White · Published by Local Blitz · How we research
The strongest evidence so far shows that AI summaries reduce clicks on regular results (Pew, Ahrefs), that AI Overview citations mostly come from pages already ranking in the top 10 (Ahrefs), that AI search tools often cite inaccurately (Tow Center), and that adding citations, quotes and statistics can raise visibility in generative answers (GEO paper). Every study has limits, so each is listed below with its method and date.
Studies at a glance
| Study (date) | Method | Key finding |
|---|---|---|
| GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (Nov 2023; KDD 2024)[1] | GEO-bench of diverse queries; tested content changes against generative engines | Methods such as adding citations, quotations and statistics raised source visibility by up to 40%; effects varied by domain |
| Ranking manipulation for conversational search (EMNLP 2024)[2] | Adversarial text injected into product pages | Prompt injection can reorder which products LLM search recommends, including on a production engine |
| Vercel and MERJ: The rise of the AI crawler (Dec 2024)[3] | Crawler traffic across Vercel’s network | GPTBot (569M fetches in a month) and Claude (370M) did not execute JavaScript; Google and Apple did |
| Tow Center (Mar 2025)[4] | 1,600 queries across 8 AI search tools, asking them to identify news article sources | More than 60% of answers were incorrect; Perplexity 37% wrong, Grok 3 94% |
| Ahrefs CTR (Apr 2025)[5] | 300,000 keywords, March 2025 data | AI Overviews associated with a 34.5% lower CTR for the top result |
| Pew Research Center (Jul 2025)[6] | Browsing data from 900 U.S. adults, March 2025; 68,879 searches | 18% of searches showed an AI summary; users clicked a result in 8% of visits with a summary vs 15% without; 1% clicked a link inside the summary |
| Ahrefs citations (Jul 2025)[7] | AI Overview citations compared with rankings | 76.1% of cited pages ranked in the top 10 |
| Ahrefs brand visibility (Dec 2025)[8] | 75,000 brands; mentions in ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews | YouTube mentions (~0.74) and branded web mentions (~0.66–0.71) correlated most with AI visibility |
| Ahrefs CTR update (Feb 2026)[9] | December 2025 data | Top-result CTR 58% lower when an AI Overview appears |
What the evidence supports
- SEO still drives AI citations. Retrieval favors pages that rank.[7][10]
- Clicks per search are falling when AI summaries appear.[6][9] Measure impressions and citations, not only sessions (see measurement).
- Verifiable content helps. Citations, quotes and statistics improved visibility in a controlled benchmark.[1]
- Brand reputation matters, although correlation studies can’t prove cause.[8]
- Accuracy is not guaranteed. Monitor what engines say about you.[4]
How to read AEO studies
- Check the date: engines change monthly.
- Check who ran it. Vendor studies often promote the vendor’s tools.
- Correlation is not causation.
- Prompt-based studies sample outputs; they don’t see real query volumes.
More debunked claims are on AEO myths. Every source used on this site is listed on sources.
Frequently asked questions
Do AI Overviews reduce clicks?
Pew (July 2025) found users clicked a regular result in 8% of visits with an AI summary vs 15% without. Ahrefs estimated a 34.5% (2025) and 58% (early 2026) drop in top-result CTR.
Is there proof AEO works?
The GEO paper showed controlled gains in a benchmark. Real-world evidence is mostly correlational, so test on your own site.
See also
References
Pages accessed September 28, 2026 unless a date is given. See all sources and our editorial policy.
- ^ "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv:2311.09735; Aggarwal, Murahari, Rajpurohit, Kalyan, Narasimhan, Deshpande)". arXiv / KDD 2024. Submitted November 16, 2023; revised June 28, 2024.
- ^ "Ranking Manipulation for Conversational Search Engines (Pfrommer, Bai, Gautam, Sojoudi)". Proceedings of EMNLP 2024, ACL Anthology. Published November 2024.
- ^ "The rise of the AI crawler". Vercel (with MERJ). Published December 17, 2024..
- ^ "AI Search Has a Citation Problem (Jaźwińska and Chandrasekar)". Columbia Journalism Review, Tow Center for Digital Journalism. Published March 6, 2025.
- ^ "AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 34.5%". Ahrefs. Published April 17, 2025; March 2025 data.
- ^ "Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results". Pew Research Center. Published July 22, 2025; March 2025 browsing data.
- ^ "76% of AI Overview Citations Pull From the Top 10". Ahrefs. Published July 21, 2025.
- ^ "AI brand visibility correlations (75,000 brands)". Ahrefs. Published December 12, 2025..
- ^ "Update: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58%". Ahrefs. Published February 4, 2026; December 2025 data.
- ^ "Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search". Google Search Central. Added May 15, 2026; last updated July 10, 2026.
Categories: AEO research