AI Search Visibility Report · July 2026

AI Search Visibility
& Ranking Factors
For 1,100 Market Segments

Large-scale research into the correlations between potential ranking factors and the actual recommendations given by 13 leading AI models, measured across 100 industries and 1,100 buyer personas using 18 distinct technical signals, including search engine presence, backlinks, Reddit engagement, Wikipedia citations, and Common Crawl web coverage.

100Industries Covered

15B+Pages Crawled

282B+Links Analyzed

global_signal_correlation.report

Signalρ vs. LLM Score

SE Outbound Links

+0.331

Homepage Keywords

+0.204

Domain PageRank

+0.192

PageRank History

+0.183

Search Engine Appearances

+0.165

All-industry pooled correlationn = 98,546

100

Industries

1,100

Buyer Personas

403k

LLM Prompts

150k+

Organic Searches

282B+

Links Analyzed

15B+

Web Pages Crawled

3B+

Reddit Submissions

26B+

Reddit Comments

25M+

Wikipedia Articles

120M+

Wikidata Entities

All-Industry Data

All-industry signal correlations (Spearman ρ vs. LLM recommendation score)

The strongest single signal across all industries is the simplest one: the industry's own vocabulary appearing on a website's homepage. Link authority (PageRank) comes next, followed by search presence and open-web mentions.

These are cross-industry numbers, and they run low by nature: a website that dominates one industry is absent from the other 99, which drags every correlation toward zero. The per-industry tables on each industry's page measure the same signals inside a single market, run meaningfully higher, and are the numbers worth acting on.

Signal	Group	ρ (Spearman)	R²	n	Tier
SE Outbound Links	Search	+0.331	11%	40,733	Dominant
Homepage Keywords	Content	+0.204	4.2%	41,494	Strong
Domain PageRank	Backlinks	+0.192	3.7%	97,628	Confirmed
PageRank History	Backlinks	+0.183	3.3%	98,546	Confirmed
Search Engine Appearances	Search	+0.165	2.7%	9,323	Confirmed
Common Crawl	Web	+0.165	2.7%	62,178	Confirmed
Host Harmonic Centrality	Backlinks	+0.164	2.7%	97,280	Confirmed
Domain Backlinks	Backlinks	+0.160	2.6%	74,885	Confirmed
Host PageRank	Backlinks	+0.156	2.4%	97,280	Confirmed
Harmonic Centrality History	Backlinks	+0.153	2.4%	98,546	Confirmed
Domain Harmonic Centrality	Backlinks	+0.151	2.3%	97,628	Confirmed
Wikidata	Reference	+0.151	2.3%	12,300	Confirmed
Host Backlinks	Backlinks	+0.150	2.2%	65,691	Confirmed
Best Search Engine Rank	Search	+0.148	2.2%	9,323	Confirmed
Reddit Comments	Social	+0.148	2.2%	48,298	Confirmed
Reddit Posts	Social	+0.128	1.6%	41,951	Confirmed
Avg Search Engine Rank	Search	+0.077	0.6%	9,323	Emerging
Wikipedia Citations	Reference	+0.055	0.3%	24,499	Emerging

Models Sampled

Claude

Sonnet 5 Haiku 4.5

GPT

GPT-5.6 Sol GPT-5.5 GPT-5.6 Terra GPT-5.6 Luna GPT-5.4 Mini GPT-4.1 Mini GPT-5.4 Nano

Gemini

3.5 Flash

DeepSeek

V4 Pro V4 Flash

GLM

GLM 5.2

Methodology

Research Process

LLM

LLM Recommendation Sampling

Started with 500 candidate industries; refined to 100 with sufficient domain coverage
Generated 11 buyer personas per industry, 1,100 in total (neutral + targeted segments)
Per persona: top recommended domains, top search phrases, top on-page phrases
Industry-level phrases collected to scope all downstream data collection

Common Crawl: Web Content

Seven web crawls, December 2025 through June 2026: 15 billion pages scanned
Measured general web presence and crawlability of every recommended domain

Reddit: Community Signals

Full corpus of Reddit submissions and comments, 2005 → mid-2026
3.7 billion submissions and 26.6 billion comments scanned for domain mentions

Search Engines: SERP Signals

150,000+ organic searches captured across Google, Bing, and Brave
Up to 100 results captured per query; appearances and rank position recorded per domain

Wikimedia: Reference Signals

Wikidata entity associations for recommended domains
English Wikipedia (enwiki) citations and outbound links per domain
25 million+ Wikipedia articles and 120 million+ Wikidata entities scanned

Common Crawl Web Graph: Backlink Authority

Every web graph release: domain graphs since July 2017, host graphs since January 2020, 282 billion+ links analyzed
PageRank computed for every recommended domain
Harmonic Centrality computed (measures reachability within the web graph)
Raw backlink count, PageRank, and HC captured for all domains

Search Results HTML: Outbound Link Analysis

Raw HTML downloaded for 3.67 million pages that appeared in the collected search results
Outbound links to tracked domains extracted from every page
Industry and persona phrases matched on each page, weighted by placement (title ×3, description ×2, body ×1)

Top Sites HTML: On-Page Phrase Analysis

Homepage HTML downloaded for every tracked domain with industry phrases (176,000 domains, covering the LLM-recommended domains)
Scored against its industry's and personas' weighted phrases: occurrences × phrase weight, title ×3, description ×2, body ×1
The homepage keyword score is a core relevance signal in the correlation analysis

Methodology

Analysis Process

★

LLM Recommendation Scoring

Each domain receives a rank-weighted LLM score per persona run: rank 1 contributes more than rank 10
Scores are aggregated across all personas to produce an industry-level recommendation score
Result: a continuous 0–100% visibility metric for every domain in every industry

Signal Extraction & Scoping

18 signals extracted per domain: SERP appearances, best rank, avg rank, search-result outbound links, homepage keyword relevance, Common Crawl co-occurrence, Reddit comments, Reddit posts, Wikipedia citations, Wikidata entities, plus 8 link-graph signals (PageRank and Harmonic Centrality at host and domain level, current and historical, and host/domain backlink counts)
Keyword and query signals are computed per industry and per persona from that segment's own phrases and queries; link-authority signals are global by nature
Correlations are rank-based (Spearman), so results never depend on raw signal scales

Spearman Rank Correlation

Spearman ρ computed between each signal and the LLM recommendation score for every industry
R² (coefficient of determination) shows how much of the variance in LLM scores each signal explains
Correlations run at both per-industry and global (cross-industry pooled) level
Coverage percentage tracked; signals with sparse data are flagged

↑

Lift Analysis

Frequency lift measures how much more common a signal is in the top 10% of LLM-recommended domains vs. the rest
Lift > 1.5× = strong over-representation; lift < 1.0× = signal is not differentiating
Separates signals that correlate from signals that actively distinguish the most-recommended brands

Tier Classification

Dominant (ρ ≥ 0.30): highest-confidence signal for this industry
Strong (0.20–0.29): reliable predictor
Confirmed (0.10–0.19): consistent but moderate effect
Emerging (0.05–0.09): present but weak
Baseline (< 0.05): no meaningful correlation detected

Persona-Level Breakdown

All correlation and ranking analysis is also run separately for each of the 1,100 personas
Reveals whether a domain is broadly recommended or only surfaces for specific buyer segments
Per-persona top-25 domain lists, SERP data, and signal tables available for every industry

100 Industries

AI Search Visibility& Ranking FactorsFor 1,100 Market Segments

All-industry signal correlations (Spearman ρ vs. LLM recommendation score)

Research Process

Analysis Process

100 industries tracked

Accounting Software

Affiliate Marketing Networks

Airlines

Athletic Apparel Brands

Auto Glass Repair

Auto Insurance

Auto Oem Brands

B2B Ad Agencies

B2B Marketing Data Providers

Baby Care Diaper Brands

Beauty Cosmetics Retail

Behavioral Health Therapy Platforms

Brokerage Wealth Management Apps

Car Rental Brands

Clothing Apparel Retail

Cloud Infrastructure Services

Colleges Universities

Commercial Banking

Commercial Solar Energy Services

Consumer Banking

Consumer Legal Services

Consumer Wealth Advisors RIAs

Corporate Tax Advisory

Cosmetic Dentistry

Cosmetic Surgery Clinics

Cosmetics Makeup Brands

Credit Cards

Credit Monitoring Services

CRM Software

Cruises

Customer Support Contact Center Software

Data Analytics BI Software

Data Center Colocation

Data Warehouse Lakehouse Platforms

Debt Consolidation Lenders

Debt Settlement Credit Repair Services

Dermatology Groups

E Signature Document Workflow

Enterprise AI Platforms

Enterprise Search Knowledge Copilots

ERP Software

Executive Search

Fertility Clinics

Fitness Clubs

Food Delivery Platforms

Furniture Stores

Golf Equipment Brands

GPU AI Infrastructure Vendors

Haircare Brands

Health Insurance

Healthcare IT for Providers

Healthcare Practice Management Software

Home Centers

Home Exercise Equipment

Homebuilders New Homes

Homeowners Insurance

Hotels Resorts

Household Cleaning Brands

HR Consulting

HR Payroll Software

Influencer Marketing Platforms for Brands

Insurance Brokerages Benefits Brokers

IVF Reproductive Medicine

Jewelry Luggage Leather Goods Retail

Legal Services for Businesses

Life Insurance

Live Entertainment Ticketing

Luxury Fashion Accessories

Managed Legal Services

Market Research Insights Firms

Marketing Automation Software

Martech CDP Attribution Software

Mattress Stores

Med Spas Aesthetic Clinics

Media Buying Agencies

AI Search Visibility
& Ranking Factors
For 1,100 Market Segments