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Answer Engineered

The full ledger

Every entry in the record, newest first. Verified statistics and citation-behavior research on AI search: each claim links to a primary source, vendor interests are flagged in-line, and each number carries its measurement date — see themethodology for the full rules.

SEPTEMBER 2026

ENTRY 026 · LLMS-TXT

68.27%

584,107 llms.txt Files. 68.27% Templated. 22.56% Contain No Links.

TEMPLATED - 68.27%NOT DETECTED AS TEMPLATED

Common Crawl analyzed 584,107 llms.txt files from its July 2026 crawl: 68.27% are templated, Wix alone is 41.34%, and 22.56% contain no links at all. · 12 MIN

ENTRY 025 · AI-OVERVIEWS

+$14.6Mvs-$5.4M

Advertising Up 2%. Then Down 1%. The AI Overviews Sentence Survived.

ORIGINAL 10-K: UP $14.6M, OR 2%RECAST EXHIBIT: DOWN $5.4M, OR 1%

People Inc. recast its 2025 fiscal year on 11 September. Advertising flips from a $14.6M increase to a $5.4M decrease. The AI Overviews line does not. · 10 MIN

ENTRY 024 · ANSWER-ENGINES

12.6%97%

One Tracker Says 100%. The Other Says 86%. Same Feature, Same August.

12.6%97%JUL 2025SEP 2026

Search Engine Roundtable reported People Also Ask is nearly 100% AI-answered. The two datasets behind that one headline disagree by 14 points on August. · 6 MIN

ENTRY 023 · ANSWER-ENGINES

2,601vs183

Two Experts, One 8.2 Million Conversation Sample, and the Numbers 59,545 and 51

IN THE GROUNDING DATA 2,601IN THE DISPLAYED OUTPUT 183

Microsoft's summary judgment filing prints both counts on one page. They measure different publishers at different thresholds, and the page never says so. · 7 MIN

ENTRY 022 · ANSWER-ENGINES

47%vs22%

Two Newspapers Sued OpenAI and Called It an Answer Engine

MID-SIZED REGIONAL, ALLEGED 47%LARGER NATIONAL, ALLEGED 22%

The Seattle Times and Newsday filed on 4 September. The phrase answer engines is theirs, and the 47 percent traffic figure traces to their own footnotes. · 6 MIN

ENTRY 021 · AI-MODE

5 d 15 h

AI Mode Stopped Showing Citations. The Reassuring Quote Was Five Days Old

QUOTE PREDATES MODEL 5 D 15 HREPORT TO GOOGLE REPLY 24 H 15 M

Gemini 3.8 Flash reached AI Mode on 2 September and citations vanished on top-of-funnel queries. The quote read as Google's answer predates the model. · 5 MIN

ENTRY 020 · AI-OVERVIEWS

39.1%vs65.3%

Google Showed AI Overviews on 39.1% of Election Queries and 65.3% of Others

ELECTION QUERIES 39.1%NON-POLITICAL 65.3%

AlgorithmWatch used a DSA data-access right to run 4,480 Google queries. AI Overviews appeared on 39.1% of election searches, 65.3% of non-political ones. · 7 MIN

AUGUST 2026

ENTRY 019 · AI-CRAWLERS

3vs1

Half of Web Traffic Is Non-Human. Three Cloudflare Numbers Became One.

DENOMINATORS IN THE SOURCE 3DENOMINATORS IN THE SENTENCE 1

Cloudflare says more than 50% of internet traffic is non-human. An explainer read that as AI bots. Three Cloudflare percentages, three different denominators. · 11 MIN

ENTRY 018 · GEO

2vs1

An SEC Filing Credits McKinsey for a 60% Stat. The Number Is Bain's.

CREDITED TO MCKINSEY 2FOUND IN THE MCKINSEY ARTICLE 1

Change Agents Corporation's S-1/A sells a GEO product on two statistics credited to McKinsey. The report it links contains one. Bain published the other. · 10 MIN

ENTRY 017 · AI-CRAWLERS

3vs0

Cloudflare Set Four Conditions for Googlebot. It Names Nobody Who Meets Them.

NAMED AS MULTI-PURPOSE 3NAMED AS MEETING THEM 0

Bot Preference Sync lets a mixed-use crawler keep search access on a training-disallowed site by meeting four disclosure conditions. Each is self-attested. · 9 MIN

ENTRY 016 · AI-MODE

-18.8ppvs+8.8pp

18.8 Points Lost, 8.8 Recovered. Only One Was Measured Cleanly.

AI MODE FORCED -18.8ppOVERVIEWS HIDDEN +8.8pp

A preregistered experiment on live Google Search put causal numbers on AI Mode and AI Overviews. Mid-study, a Google HTML change broke one arm of the test. · 6 MIN

ENTRY 015 · AI-CRAWLERS

150:1227:1

179:1, 6,000:1, 50,000:1: Three Tools, One Metric, No Shared Definition

150:1227:1Q1 2026Q2 2026

Scrape-to-referral is the metric of the moment. TollBit, Microsoft Clarity and Cloudflare each publish a version of it, and none of them count the same thing. · 6 MIN

ENTRY 014 · GEO

1532

Generative Engine Optimization Is in 47 SEC Filings. Read the Risk Factors.

1532FILED 2025FILED 2026

Generative engine optimization appears in 47 SEC filings from 19 companies. The most candid description of it comes from a company warning investors about it. · 5 MIN

ENTRY 013 · CHATGPT

96.37%

ChatGPT Ads Reached Five More Countries. The Ad Rarely Buys the Citation.

ADVERTISER ABSENT FROM SOURCES - 96.37%PRESENT - 3.63%

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Ads in five more countries. A 50,006-prompt study finds the advertiser absent from the answer's own sources 96.37% of the time. · 6 MIN

ENTRY 012 · AI-OVERVIEWS

43%vs59%

AI Overviews Out-Trust TikTok. The Headline Number Isn't in the Report.

AI OVERVIEWS & CHATGPT 43% EACHFRIENDS & FAMILY 59%

RTB House says US shoppers trust Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT at 43% each, ahead of every social platform. Its lead press-release stat is not in the report. · 5 MIN

ENTRY 011 · AI-OVERVIEWS

22%vs1%

A Publisher Put AI Overviews in an SEC Filing. Revenue Fell 1%.

CORE SESSIONS DOWN 22%SESSION-BASED REVENUE DOWN 1%

People Incorporated's Q2 8-K blames Google AI Overviews for a 22% Core Sessions decline. The same filing shows session-based revenue fell just 1%. · 5 MIN

ENTRY 010 · GEO

5vs1

Cloudflare Shipped an AI Visibility Score. It Asks Two Models.

SCORED BY THE PROMPT PANEL 5REAL CRAWL & REFERRAL LOGS 1

Cloudflare's AEO dashboard pairs real crawl and referral logs with a Citation Rate scored against Claude and GPT only, computed once per category. · 6 MIN

ENTRY 009 · AI-OVERVIEWS

5vs0

Google Shipped the AI Opt-Out Without the Data to Use It

FIELDS THE AI REPORT SHOWS 5CLICKS OR CTR AMONG THEM 0

Search Console's AI opt-out is rolling out now. The same console reports impressions and no clicks, so the trade-off it asks you to make cannot be measured. · 6 MIN

ENTRY 008 · ZERO-CLICK

41%vs66%

The Zero-Click Rate Is 46.96%. The Average Is the Least Useful Part.

JAPAN 41%US MOBILE 66%

iPullRank measured 13.1 billion search events. Zero-click runs from 41% in Japan to 66% on US mobile, so a single blended benchmark tells you very little. · 5 MIN

JULY 2026

ENTRY 007 · AI-MODE

1x8.4x

Google Is Now AI Mode's #2 Cited Domain. Read the Footnote.

1x8.4x15 APR 202630 JUN 2026

Profound reports google.com's AI Mode citation share rose 8.4x in ten weeks. The measurement is domain-level, which changes what the number means for you. · 5 MIN

ENTRY 006 · FRESHNESS

72%vs42%

The Freshness Illusion: Why AI Cites Edited Pages, Not New Ones

FRESH BY UPDATE DATE 72%PUBLISHED WITHIN A YEAR 42%

Seer Interactive dated 7,683 AI-cited pages: 72% look fresh by update date, but only 42% were published within the past year. What that gap actually means. · 6 MIN

ENTRY 005 · CTR

7.3%1.6%

The Position-1 CTR Collapse: From 7.3% to 1.6% in Two Years

7.3%1.6%DEC 2023DEC 2025

Ahrefs 300K-keyword data: position-1 CTR on AI Overview keywords fell from 7.3% to 1.6% between Dec 2023 and Dec 2025. The zero-click economics behind the drop. · 5 MIN

ENTRY 004 · LLMS-TXT

1 / 94,614

llms.txt Does Not Work: 1 Cited URL in 94,614

94,614 AI-CITED URLS · 1 MARK = 1,000THE 1 CITED URL: TOO SMALL TO DRAW HERE

One cited URL in 94,614 came from an llms.txt page. Why adoption never became usage, what Google says on the record, and what moves AI citations instead of it. · 5 MIN

ENTRY 003 · GHOST-CITATIONS

61.7%

Ghost Citations: 61.7% of AI Citations Rank Outside the Organic Top 100

OUTSIDE ORGANIC TOP 100 - 61.7%INSIDE - 38.3%

61.7% of AI citations point to URLs outside the organic top 100 (Profound, 340M prompts). What ghost citations are, why they happen, what publishers should do. · 5 MIN

ENTRY 002 · AI-SEARCH

76%38%

AI Search Visibility Statistics 2026: Every Verified Number, Sourced

76%38%JUL 2025MAR 2026

Every verified AI search visibility statistic our desk holds in July 2026 — citation behavior, traffic impact, platform mechanics — each with a primary source. · 8 MIN

ENTRY 001 · AI-REFERRALS

15.9%vs1.76%

AI Referral Traffic Is Small — and Converts at 9x the Organic Rate

CHATGPT REFERRAL 15.9%ORGANIC SEARCH 1.76%

ChatGPT referrals convert at 15.9% versus 1.76% for organic search (Orbit Media). Why AI traffic is small but valuable, and why analytics miss most of it. · 5 MIN

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