“Best of” listicles drive AI citations because they answer the exact question people ask AI assistants. When a buyer types “best payroll software for a 50-person firm” or “best industrial adhesive suppliers in the Midwest” into ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Mode, the engine runs a web search, and the pages that rank for that phrasing are ranked lists. The model reads those lists, lifts the names, the pros and the cons, and assembles its recommendation from them. Ahrefs’ study of 750 ChatGPT prompts found that “best X” blog lists made up 43.8 percent of all cited page types, more than any other format.
Getting in means finding the lists that already get cited for your prompts, reaching the people who maintain them, and giving them a reason to add you.
AI assistants do not evaluate products; they summarize the pages that already rank them, so the brands named in cited "best of" lists are the brands that get recommended.
Why do AI engines lean on listicles?
Three reasons, all structural.
First, the format matches the query. A ranked list with a short verdict on each entry is the easiest page for a model to turn into a recommendation; one author has already done the comparison.
Second, listicles rank in traditional search, and most AI engines still start with a search. Perplexity, ChatGPT with browsing and Google AI Mode retrieve pages from a web index before they write.
Third, listicles look like independent evidence. A model treats a third-party page as a vote in a way it does not treat the brand’s own homepage. Profound’s 2026 analysis of 11.8 billion AI citations found brand websites take 57 percent of citations globally, which leaves about 43 percent for third-party pages such as media, communities and institutions. On ChatGPT brand sites fall to 47 percent, so over half of its citations come from pages the brand does not control. Listicles are a large slice of that half. Our flagship guide on why third-party articles decide which brands AI recommends covers the full mechanism.
What does the citation data actually show?
Three recent studies point the same way.
Ahrefs (December 2025). Glen Allsopp analyzed 26,283 source URLs across 750 top-of-funnel ChatGPT prompts for software, consumer products and agencies. “Best X” blog lists were 43.8 percent of all cited page types, with review platforms such as G2 and Clutch the next list-style format. Recently updated lists were the most prominent, and a brand placed higher on multiple lists was more likely to be recommended, although Ahrefs calls this a correlation rather than a rule.
Seer Interactive (February 2026). Nick Haigler’s team tracked 2 million ChatGPT citations on a fixed set of prompts across 16 industries. Listicles accounted for 16.6 percent of citations over three and a half months, falling from 17.8 percent in November to 15.5 percent in January. The lower figure than Ahrefs reflects a different method and a prompt set that includes informational questions, not only purchase intent.
Peec (March 2026). Peec examined 232,000 citations in the software-review niche between December 2025 and February 2026 and isolated self-promotional listicles, where the publisher ranks its own product first. About 11 percent of citations came from such lists. ChatGPT was the most selective at 3.6 percent, against 10.3 percent for Google AI Mode and 10.4 percent for Perplexity.
The common thread: independent ranked lists are one of the two largest third-party formats on every engine measured, and the engines prefer lists that are fresh and not self-serving.
Which types of listicle get cited most?
In our experience running prompt audits for clients in SaaS, fintech, manufacturing and consumer goods, the lists that show up repeatedly fall into six types.
| Listicle type | Example | Why engines cite it | How hard to get into |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editorial roundup on a major publication | “The 10 best project management tools” on a tech or business site | High domain authority, frequent updates, independent voice | Hard; needs a newsworthy angle or an editor relationship |
| Trade publication list | “Top packaging suppliers to watch” in an industry magazine | Topical authority, read by the exact buyer, often cited for niche prompts | Moderate; editors want expert input and data |
| Review platform ranking | G2, Capterra, Clutch, Trustpilot category pages | Structured data, many reviews, treated as non-blog lists by Ahrefs | Moderate; depends on review volume and profile quality |
| Niche blogger or consultant list | “Best CRMs for dental practices” on a specialist’s blog | Specific, long-tail match to detailed prompts | Easier; authors update often and welcome input |
| Vendor-owned list | “Best X tools” on a competitor’s or partner’s blog | Cited less, especially by ChatGPT (Peec: 3.6 percent) | Easy for partners, impossible for competitors |
| Community thread | “What is the best X?” on Reddit or a forum | Growing share on ChatGPT; perceived as unbiased | Different skill set; see our Reddit marketing guide |
A practical rule: aim for two or three lists from the top four rows for every commercial prompt that matters to you. One placement rarely moves an answer; repetition across independent sources is what engines read as consensus.
Are listicles losing ground in AI answers?
Partly, and it matters for how you prioritize. Seer’s data shows ChatGPT cut listicle citations by 30 percent from December 2025 to January 2026 (160,000 to 111,000) while overall citations fell 22.7 percent, so listicles were trimmed harder than other formats. Wikipedia’s share nearly doubled from 3.6 to 5.9 percent, Reddit’s roughly tripled, and review sites such as G2 and Capterra grew.
Two things follow. First, the lists that survived share a formula. Seer describes it as recency, comprehensiveness, external validation and structure: updated this quarter, covering the whole category rather than five picks, backed by reviews or data, with clear headings per entry. Pursue the lists that already fit that pattern.
Second, listicles are one leg of a stool. The same consensus signal comes from trade press, review platforms and community threads, and a brand present across all four is far harder to overlook than one that appears in lists alone. Our post on how ChatGPT chooses which brands to recommend walks through that wider source mix.
How do you get your brand into existing listicles?
Here is the process we use; anyone can run it in-house.
1. Find the lists that are actually cited. Write out the 20 to 50 prompts a buyer would ask about your category, with variants for company size, region and use case. Run each in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode. Open every cited URL and record the domain, author, last-updated date, whether you are included and where competitors rank. Our free LLM visibility checker speeds this up, but a spreadsheet works.
2. Sort by influence, not domain rating alone. A list cited for six of your prompts on two engines beats a higher-authority site cited once. Domain Rating (DR, Ahrefs’ 0 to 100 score of a site’s link profile) hints at whether the page will keep ranking, but citation frequency is the number to sort on.
3. Reach the person, not the publication. Find the named author or section editor on LinkedIn or the masthead. Generic contact forms are where requests go to die. Keep the email short: who you are, which list, why it is incomplete without you, and what you are offering.
4. Offer something the author needs. Writers update lists when the update makes the list better. The offers that work, in rough order of success in our outreach:
- A correction to stale information (a competitor that has shut down or changed pricing, a feature that is now wrong).
- Original data the author can cite: a benchmark, a survey, a pricing comparison.
- A customer example with a named company and a number.
- Product access or a sample so the author can test it.
- A quotable comment from your founder or head of product.
5. Write guest listicles on trade sites. When no independent list exists for a niche prompt, create one on a publication the engines already trust. A guest post titled “The 9 best accounts payable tools for mid-sized manufacturers” on an industry site, with your brand placed honestly among competitors, becomes a citable source. Vet the site first; our guide on how to vet a website before buying a link lists the checks.
6. Track and re-run. Re-run the prompt set every 30 days, note which placements have been picked up and which lists were refreshed without you, and follow up. In engagements we track, brands we have placed in third-party articles, guest posts and listicles have seen AI citations rise by roughly 70 to 80 percent on the prompts where those articles are cited.
Should you publish your own “best of” list?
Yes, with modest expectations. A list on your own site where you rank yourself first is a vendor-owned list, and the data says engines discount it. But an honest comparison that includes competitors, says who each option suits, and is updated quarterly can still be cited, especially on Perplexity and Google AI Mode where Peec found self-promotional lists at around 10 percent of citations. Make it quotable: a verdict per entry, a comparison table, and a last-updated date near the top.
How Model Marketing helps
Most of the above can be done in-house if you have the hours. We add scale and access. Our 22 link builders and 9 full-time writers have placed 12,237+ links across 10,132 publications in SaaS, fintech, professional services, consumer apps, B2B services and manufacturing, and we have working relationships with the editors who maintain the lists AI engines cite.
Our link building service places guest listicles and secures insertions into existing lists on sites that pass our nine-point vetting bar, including a check on how often each site is already cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Mode. Guest posts run from $250 (DR 50 to 69) to $320 (DR 80+); niche insertions start at $200. For brands that need an original data angle to earn editorial lists, our digital PR campaigns build the study and pitch it. Everything is billed per live placement, month to month, with a 12-month replacement guarantee; details are on our pricing page.