Evidence AI Visibility

When ChatGPT began linking out, homepages took the gain, not blog pages

After ChatGPT started showing clickable source links in May 2026, referral traffic nearly doubled but the gain concentrated on homepages while blog sessions fell.

ID
SS-EV-041
Confidence
Established · 70
Evidence
Emerging
Updated
2026-08-10

The claim

AI answer engines link to the entity being recommended rather than to a matching document, so brand-level pages capture AI referral traffic that deep content does not.

What the evidence shows

Across 52 sites (9 B2B, 43 B2C) in matched six-week windows either side of 7 May 2026, ChatGPT referral sessions rose 97.9% (183,497 to 363,089). Homepages grew 1,316% (7,990 to 113,183), lifting their share of ChatGPT referral traffic from 4.4% to 31.2%, while blog sessions FELL 28% (3,495 to 2,509). The aggregate is heavily skewed: median site growth was 54%, the single largest winner took 64% of the net increase and the top five took 91%, and 14 of the 52 sites declined outright.

Source

Source
Botpresso, analysis of 52 websites
Type
Third-party study
Year
2026
Strength
Indicative

How SearchScore applies it

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