Last week, a customer asked me why their competitor shows up in ChatGPT 100% of the time for their core keyword, while they appear 0% of the time.

Both companies have similar domain authority. Both publish regularly. Both rank well on Google.

So what’s different?

After auditing 1000+ company websites for AI search optimization, I’ve found the same issues over and over. The good news: most are simple technical fixes.

Summary:

Want ChatGPT or Perplexity to cite your content? Treat your blog like structured data, not just marketing text. Move it to a subdirectory, add summary tables, shorten URLs, and write Q→A style explanations using real data.

How ChatGPT Actually Decides What to Cite

Before we fix anything, you need to understand how LLMs choose sources.

How ChatGPT, Claude & Perplexity Choose What to Cite

LLMs rank and cite pages in three steps:

1. The 200: They gather the top ~200 Google results for a query.

2. The 20: They crawl ~20 that look machine-readable.

3. The 10: They cite the most structured and trustworthy ~10.

Even top Google results can get filtered out at Step 2 if their structure is hard to parse.The 5 Reasons ChatGPT Ignores Your Content.

1. Your Blog Lives on a Subdomain

The Problem:
If your blog is at blog.yourcompany.com instead of yourcompany.com/blog, AI search engines treat it as a completely separate website.

We found a creator platform with excellent content that wasn’t getting cited. Their blog was on a subdomain. ChatGPT couldn’t connect it to their main domain authority.

The Fix:
Move your blog from blog.domain.com to domain.com/blog

This is a 30-minute DNS change that can 10x your citations overnight.

Why It Works:
AI search engines weight domain authority heavily in the filtering stage. Subdomains split your authority. Subdirectories consolidate it.

2. You’re Missing the Summary Table

The Problem:
ChatGPT prioritizes content it can quickly parse and cite. Walls of text get filtered out.

We analyzed a highly-cited competitor in the productivity space. Every single one of their articles starts with a summary table.

Add a summary table or bullet-point list at the very beginning of every article. Include:

• Key takeaways

• Product comparisons

• Feature lists

• Step-by-step overviews

Why It Works:
LLMs are trained to extract structured data. Tables and lists are easier to parse than paragraphs. They also make better citation sources because users can quickly verify the information.

3. Your URLs Are Too Long

The Problem:
We tracked citation frequency across hundreds of articles and found a clear pattern: shorter URLs get cited more often.

Example:

• ❌ yoursite.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-understanding-how-to-use-our-product-for-maximum-efficiency

• ✅ yoursite.com/blog/product-guide

The Fix:
Keep URL slugs under 5 words. Remove filler words like “the,” “ultimate,” “guide,” “how-to.”

For existing content: Set up 301 redirects from old URLs to new, shorter ones.

Why It Works:
Shorter URLs are easier for LLMs to reference and cite. They also tend to rank better on Google, which gets you into the initial 200 results pool.

4. You’re Using Interactive Elements

The Problem:
One customer had beautiful interactive checkbox comparisons on their landing pages. Users loved them. ChatGPT couldn’t read them.

LLMs can’t parse:

• Interactive widgets

• Checkbox selectors

• Dynamic dropdowns

• Image-based text

The Fix:
Include a text version of any interactive content. Either:

• Put static text above the widget, OR

• Add an accordion with “View as text” option, OR

• Create a separate /text version of the page

5. Your Conclusion is Weak (or Missing)

The Problem:
Most blogs trail off at the end. They summarize what they already said or add a generic CTA.

ChatGPT specifically looks for strong conclusions because that’s where writers typically synthesize the most important information.

The Fix:
End every article with a “Key Takeaways” or “Bottom Line” section that:

• States your main argument in 2-3 sentences

• Includes specific numbers or data points

• Makes a clear recommendation

Example:

Bottom Line: Companies using AI-optimized content see 3-5x higher citation rates in ChatGPT responses. The biggest impact comes from URL structure (2x improvement) and summary tables (3x improvement). Start with those two changes before investing in new content.

Why It Works:
LLMs weight conclusions heavily when deciding what to cite. A strong conclusion with specific data points is citation gold.

Quick Audit Framework

The One Thing Nobody Talks About

Here’s what most SEO guides won’t tell you:

Third-party citations beat owned content 90% of the time.

A SaaS company we work with ranks #1 on Google for their main keyword. Their blog appears in the top 200 results. But ChatGPT cites them only 15% of the time.

Why?

Because a third-party blog post ranks #3 and gets cited 53% of the time.

The third-party post has:

• More natural language (not marketing copy)

• Comparison with competitors

• User perspective vs vendor perspective

• Links to multiple sources

The Strategy Shift:

Stop thinking “How do I rank my blog higher?”

Start thinking “How do I get cited in the blogs that ChatGPT already trusts?”

This means:

• Outreach to third-party blogs in your space

• Offer to be quoted as an expert

• Provide data they can cite

• Write guest posts on established platforms

Getting mentioned in 5 trusted third-party articles will drive more AI search visibility than publishing 50 posts on your own blog.

The 80/20 Fix

If you only do three things, do these:

1. Move your blog to a subdirectory (blog.site.com → site.com/blog)

2. Add summary tables to your top 10 articles

3. Shorten your URLs

These three changes take less than a day and can double your citation rate.

What About Google SEO?

You’re probably wondering: “Will these changes hurt my Google rankings?”

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: These optimizations actually help with both traditional SEO and AI search:

• Tables improve time-on-page and user experience

• Shorter URLs are an SEO best practice

• Strong conclusions reduce bounce rate

• Subdirectories vs subdomains is neutral-to-positive for Google

The only potential trade-off is removing interactive elements. But you can keep them AND add text versions.

The Reality Check

Even with all these fixes, you might still get cited less than 50% of the time.

Why?

Because AI search weighs third-party sources heavily. Your own blog is marketing content. Third-party mentions are social proof.

The real strategy is:

• Fix your own content (these 5 fixes)

• Get mentioned in third-party content (outreach)

• Track what’s working (measure citation rates)

Most companies do #1 and stop. The ones winning at AI search do all three.

Conclusion

So, what’s actually worth doing if you want ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude to cite your content?
Our internal benchmarks across 10M+ tracked URLs show five changes that consistently deliver measurable lifts in Generative Engine visibility:

Bottom line:
If you only do one thing — move your blog to a subdirectory.
Do three things — add summary tables, shorten URLs, and write in Q→A format.
Do all five — and you’ll increase your odds of being cited by AI search engines by over 2×.

Want to see exactly how often ChatGPT cites your content? Try out www.usebear.ai