OpenAI: people won't click links, however we show them
"No matter how prominently we show the links, users won't click." That line is from an OpenAI engineer in a court filing, and it says a lot about how much traffic AI answers will ever send you.
Read the whole week in one goThe spam update really landed over the weekend
Getting into AI answers
OpenAI staff say people ignore links in AI answers
An OpenAI engineer is quoted in a newly unsealed court filing saying users will not click the links in AI answers no matter how prominently they are shown. Natzir found the line buried in 92 pages of the New York Times case against OpenAI, and Gagan Ghotra passed it on.
No matter how prominently we show the links, users won't click.
Who this affects: Anyone counting on AI chatbots to send visitors to their site.
- Our take: judge AI visibility on brand awareness, not click counts.
- Track real referral traffic from ChatGPT in your analytics before investing more.
Nearly half of chatbot quotes come from your page's top
A study of 3 million ChatGPT answers and 30 million citations found 44.2% of quoted passages came from the first third of a page, 31.1% from the middle and 24.7% from the end. Kevin Indig ran the analysis, which also found cited text was much heavier on names of companies, products and places than normal writing.
Who this affects: Anyone writing articles or guides who wants AI tools to quote them.
- Answer the page's main question in the first two paragraphs.
- Use question headings with a short, plain answer underneath.
Google is testing buying inside AI answers in India
Google is testing a tie-up with Flipkart so people in India can buy products without leaving AI Mode or Gemini. Gagan Ghotra reported the test and called it an exclusive Flipkart relationship with Google, wondering what rival Indian retailers make of it. It is a test in one country for now, so nothing to do unless you sell there.
Who this affects: Online shops, mainly those selling in India.
- Do nothing yet, this is one test in one market.