{"id":193630,"date":"2025-12-04T03:30:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/?p=193630"},"modified":"2025-12-05T06:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T11:46:10","slug":"best-lists-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/best-lists-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Self-Promotional \u201cBest\u201d Lists Boost ChatGPT Visibility? Study of 26,283 Source URLs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intro-txt\">Across 60,000+ websites we track daily analytics for, ChatGPT sends 8-9x the referral traffic of the next leading AI-first platform, Perplexity.<\/div>\n<p>Just last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that more than 800 million people use the platform each&nbsp;week.<\/p>\n<p>But what does it take to get mentioned and cited in its responses?<\/p>\n<p>Our latest research into top-of-the-funnel queries shows that recently updated \u201cbest X\u201d lists were the most prominent page type in ChatGPT sources, including those where recommended brands ranked themselves in first&nbsp;place.<\/p>\n<p>There was also a correlation between a brand positioning highly in third-party lists and being more likely to feature in responses.<\/p>\n<p>Does that conclusively mean you should be publishing these lists yourself? Before I share the approach we\u2019re taking, let\u2019s look at the data in&nbsp;full.<br>\n<\/p><div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"Study methodology\" data-section=\"section-one\">\n<h2>The methodology behind this&nbsp;study<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>I analyzed ChatGPT responses across 750 top-of-the-funnel prompts in three categories: software, products, and agency recommendations (e.g., \u2018the best web design agencies in London\u2019).<\/p>\n<p>While that number might not sound like much, it took dozens of hours to manually categorize responses to ensure accuracy.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_193703\" style=\"width: 1310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-193703\" class=\"size-full wp-image-193703\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/crm-software-lists.jpg\" alt width=\"1300\" height=\"466\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/crm-software-lists.jpg 1300w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/crm-software-lists-680x244.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/crm-software-lists-768x275.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px\"><p id=\"caption-attachment-193703\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">What I was looking for: How often \u201cbest\u201d lists show up as citations<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For <strong>software<\/strong>, I was looking at like \u201cbest crm software for enterprise\u201d and \u201cbest project management software\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>For <strong>products<\/strong>, I analysed prompts around queries such as \u201cbest entry-level DSLR\u201d and \u201cbest home treadmill\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In the <strong>agency category<\/strong>, I looked at terms related to agencies offering services covering SEO, social media, advertising, branding, general marketing, and web design.<\/p>\n<p>In traditional SEO, these terms are estimated to be searched for hundreds of thousands of times per&nbsp;month.<\/p>\n<p>That said, it\u2019s likely that the terms people enter into Google might not be the perfect representation of what is entered in a chat platform. Unfortunately, AI platforms don\u2019t provide that data directly.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve tested both simple and descriptive prompts in these industries and found little to no additional \u201cdrift\u201d compared to tracking the same prompts. I\u2019ve covered this more in our supplemental doc below, and plan to share more research there in the near future.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also likely that a notable percentage of recommendations are given as the result of a multi-query conversation, rather than a single prompt.<\/p>\n<p>For this reason, I haven\u2019t looked into the most recommended brands or the top-cited domains overall, but rather into the types of content sourced from those&nbsp;sites.<\/p>\n<p>Another aim with this study is to set a benchmark for what we\u2019re seeing across the board, which we can compare against and improve upon over&nbsp;time.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sidenote\"><div class=\"sidenote-title\">Sidenote.<\/div> For more specific details about this research and its methodology, I\u2019ve created a <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1S0UrhyIQR7KRxNZuFqVoNEgMP15oqt4krQdfIkGTL5s\/edit?usp=sharing\">supplemental Google Doc<\/a> that shares lessons learned and ideas for future research based on my findings.<\/div>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"'Best' lists as a percentage of all page types\" data-section=\"section-two\">\n<h2>Across all source links, \u201cbest X\u201d blog lists represented 43.8% of all page&nbsp;types<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>The table below covers the most common page types we saw across all three categories.<\/p>\n<p>It includes both first-party mentions\u2014when a recommended brand or product\u2019s own website is cited\u2014and third-party mentions.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193657\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/prominent-page-types.png\" alt width=\"1610\" height=\"1846\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/prominent-page-types.png 1610w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/prominent-page-types-371x425.png 371w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/prominent-page-types-768x881.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/prominent-page-types-1340x1536.png 1340w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1610px) 100vw, 1610px\"><\/p>\n<p>The majority of page types we analysed should be self-explanatory, but for those that are the most prominent, here\u2019s some additional clarification:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Blog list<\/strong>: A list of recommendations in a blog post format, such as this post on \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/best-ai-detectors-tested\/\">The 8 Best AI Detectors, Tested and Compared<\/a>\u201d by our own Ryan&nbsp;Law<\/li>\n<li><strong>Non-Blog List<\/strong>: Platforms like G2 (software) or Clutch (agency), which rank recommendations but not in a blog post style format<\/li>\n<li><strong>Landing page<\/strong>: General pages like a specific service an agency offers, or a market a SaaS company has a solution e.g., <a href=\"https:\/\/www.siegemedia.com\/services\/web-design\">this page on Siege Media<\/a> showing they offer web design services<\/li>\n<li><strong>Social media<\/strong>: This covers sites like Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Links may appear inline with recommendations, or as source links, which were used for research but require an additional click to&nbsp;view.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Each first-party mention was manually categorized.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For third-party mentions, totaling 10,000+ individual URLs, we used a semi-automated approach.<\/p>\n<p>We set up dozens of manual filters to improve accuracy. For example, the learn.g2.com subdomain hosts content types very different from standard G2 category pages.<\/p>\n<p>For the remaining URLs, we categorized them with OpenAI\u2019s GPT-5 model with custom instructions.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, we spent time going over each group of URLs and improved tagging where necessary, though we were happy with 95% of what we originally saw.<\/p>\n<p>In some categories there\u2019s a clear shift in which page type featured prominently. Landing pages are commonly cited when looking for the best software or agency, but rarely show up when researching products.<\/p>\n<p>General blog posts on product websites performed far better than in the software and agency recommendations space.<br>\n<\/p><div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"Where brands positioned on 'best' lists\" data-section=\"section-three\">\n<h2>Placing higher on multiple comparison lists likely increases your chances of being recommended by ChatGPT<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>For each of the categories in question, we took 250 \u201cbest\u201d blog lists from ChatGPT\u2019s responses (750 in total) to determine where a specific brand was featured when that list was sourced alongside it.<\/p>\n<p>This was all done by hand, as automation would not be as accurate. For example, many lists claim they have a certain number of items, when they often have more and simply haven\u2019t updated their title or headline.<\/p>\n<p>Automation to determine <em>where<\/em> a brand featured in a list can be even more complex. Especially as they\u2019re not always presented in a clean list of numbered headings.<\/p>\n<p>In the example below, you can see that Asana features as the top spot in their own list of the best project management software:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193660\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/asana-rankings.jpg\" alt width=\"1100\" height=\"397\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/asana-rankings.jpg 1100w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/asana-rankings-680x245.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/asana-rankings-768x277.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px\"><\/p>\n<p>In a similar article on Zapier\u2019s website, Asana is shown as the second recommendation:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193662\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/asana-on-zapier.jpg\" alt width=\"1100\" height=\"293\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/asana-on-zapier.jpg 1100w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/asana-on-zapier-680x181.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/asana-on-zapier-768x205.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px\"><\/p>\n<p>Both pages were used as a source in a ChatGPT response.<\/p>\n<p>Taking all 750 lists into account, here\u2019s the distribution of where a mentioned product, brand, or service provider was featured in an associated \u201cbest\u201d list.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193663\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/brand-list-ranking.png\" alt width=\"1600\" height=\"1780\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/brand-list-ranking.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/brand-list-ranking-382x425.png 382w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/brand-list-ranking-768x854.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/brand-list-ranking-1381x1536.png 1381w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<p>While there\u2019s a clear suggestion that being positioned highly increases recommendations, there\u2019s also some bias&nbsp;here.<\/p>\n<p>Not every list has 10 or more items, so there will always be more recommendations at higher list positions.<\/p>\n<p>To help solve this, we can look at list distribution and how many recommendations fall into the top, middle, or bottom third of a list, regardless of its&nbsp;size.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193665\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/featured-brand-position.png\" alt width=\"1610\" height=\"886\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/featured-brand-position.png 1610w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/featured-brand-position-680x374.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/featured-brand-position-768x423.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/featured-brand-position-1536x845.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1610px) 100vw, 1610px\"><\/p>\n<p>As we can see from the overall distribution, there\u2019s still a strong trend towards companies and products that ranked higher in the associated list.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to do one better than that and also share a chart focused on a separate set of lists with 10 or more items. There we see a less prominent result, but it\u2019s trending in the same direction:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193667\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/brand-list-ten-items.png\" alt width=\"1600\" height=\"1780\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/brand-list-ten-items.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/brand-list-ten-items-382x425.png 382w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/brand-list-ten-items-768x854.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/brand-list-ten-items-1381x1536.png 1381w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<p>Some other factors might be in play here, as covered in the aforementioned supplemental doc.<\/p>\n<p>One conclusion we might quickly jump to is that LLMs pick earlier sections of the data given to them, and thus they\u2019re \u201cprioritizing\u201d some of the top recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>I spoke briefly with Dan Petrovic from DEJAN SEO, who has done extensive research in this space, and suggested that might not be the case. Some of his <a href=\"https:\/\/dejan.ai\/blog\/ai-search-filter\/\">analysis<\/a> reveals that more or less content can be extracted depending on the domain or page being sourced.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re still studying this, so I hesitate to give a definitive conclusion, but even if AI were not a thing, you would logically want to feature higher on a list of recommended software, products or service providers in your industry.<br>\n<\/p><div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"When the average list was last updated\" data-section=\"section-four\">\n<h2>Across 1,100 blog lists used as research sources, 79.1% were updated in&nbsp;2025<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>I took an equal sample of blog lists from our three categories and checked to see when they were published or last updated. After filtering out those without clear publish or modified dates, I was left with a clean list of 1,100 URLs to analyze.<\/p>\n<p>79.1% were last updated in 2025, and <strong>26% were last updated in the past two months alone.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This accounts for those that were either published for the first time or later modified in the respective timeframe.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, more articles had been updated since publication (57.1%) than those published and left as&nbsp;is.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193668\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/cited-list-dates.png\" alt width=\"1600\" height=\"1552\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/cited-list-dates.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/cited-list-dates-438x425.png 438w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/cited-list-dates-768x745.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/cited-list-dates-1536x1490.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<p>Keeping articles up to date may help them perform better in traditional search, but our data shows AI assistants prefer <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/do-ai-assistants-prefer-to-cite-fresh-content\/\">even fresher content<\/a>.<br>\n<\/p><div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"The Domain Rating of prominently cited lists\" data-section=\"section-five\">\n<h2>35% of cited best lists were published on low authority domains \u2014 many of which were highly questionable<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Spend some time reviewing the sources ChatGPT uses and it\u2019s clear they are not always the most legitimate websites.<\/p>\n<p>Many lack any human presence and look almost entirely like they were built for link building and \/ or citation purposes.<\/p>\n<p>While the bar for quality should be higher if they\u2019re using Google and Bing as their reference sources, our own Louise Linehan <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/chatgpts-most-cited-pages\/\">found that<\/a> 28% of ChatGPT\u2019s most-cited pages have zero organic visibility.<\/p>\n<p>My own <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/glen-allsopp-63084025_just-how-different-are-google-and-bing-search-activity-7376976219025625089-9z1s\/\">research<\/a> found that many questionable sites perform well in Bing but not as well in Google.<\/p>\n<p>While Ahrefs Domain Rating isn\u2019t a perfect indicator of site quality, if I take 1,000 cited best lists across each category (3,000 in total), I found that a significant portion were published on domains with low authority.<\/p>\n<p>In simple terms, they have fewer high-quality sites linking to their&nbsp;own.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193669\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/best-lists-domain-rating.png\" alt width=\"1800\" height=\"1695\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/best-lists-domain-rating.png 1800w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/best-lists-domain-rating-451x425.png 451w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/best-lists-domain-rating-768x723.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/best-lists-domain-rating-1536x1446.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\"><\/p>\n<p>As Glenn Gabe covered in his excellent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gsqi.com\/marketing-blog\/ai-search-core-systems-anti-spam\/\">article<\/a>, Google\u2019s own AI answers should have fewer issues promoting legitimate sites, but other AI search platforms will likely need to develop stronger trust and quality scoring going forward.<\/p>\n<p>I expect we\u2019ll see the left side of this chart decline over&nbsp;time.<br>\n<\/p><div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"Their popularity across all AI platforms\" data-section=\"section-six\">\n<h2>Across the same queries, \u201cbest\u201d lists are highly prominent on all popular AI platforms<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>While the majority of this study was focused on ChatGPT, the prominence of these comparison articles isn\u2019t exclusive to OpenAI\u2019s platform<\/p>\n<p>In fact, they were slightly more prominent in Google\u2019s AI Overviews:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193671\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/top-of-funnel-best-lists.png\" alt width=\"1600\" height=\"1593\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/top-of-funnel-best-lists.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/top-of-funnel-best-lists-427x425.png 427w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/top-of-funnel-best-lists-768x765.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/top-of-funnel-best-lists-1536x1529.png 1536w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/top-of-funnel-best-lists-120x120.png 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not just top-of-the-funnel queries where they show up either.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at the top 1,000 most-cited pages across each platform via <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/brand-radar\">Ahrefs Brand Radar<\/a>, all included comparison listicles. And that\u2019s across 150M+ total prompts.<br>\n<\/p><div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"A twist for first-party citations\" data-section=\"section-seven\">\n<h2>There was one twist: When ChatGPT recommends a brand, other pages on its site are more likely to be referenced<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>The way ChatGPT recommends agencies and products differs from how it currently recommends software.<\/p>\n<p>When you\u2019re looking for an agency, you can often click directly on that agency\u2019s name to pop out a sidebar and learn more about&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, for the purposes of analyzing different categories, this isn\u2019t always the&nbsp;case.<\/p>\n<p>As you can see below, there was no direct website link in the sidebar for <em>Charle<\/em>, but there was a link to their website in the text below their&nbsp;name.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193672\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/charle-in-chatgpt.jpg\" alt width=\"1300\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/charle-in-chatgpt.jpg 1300w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/charle-in-chatgpt-680x238.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/charle-in-chatgpt-768x269.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"sidenote\"><div class=\"sidenote-title\">Sidenote.<\/div> In ChatGPT 5.1 these sidebars seem to no longer appear for agencies, so it\u2019s fortunate that we didn\u2019t focus on mentions in&nbsp;them.<\/div>\n<p>Due to this inconsistency, for agency-focused prompts we decided to focus on the link associated with a brand, rather than the link that may appear in their sidebar.<\/p>\n<p>This should have no impact on stats for things like Blog Lists or Non-Blog Lists, but it may have technically allowed us to find far more first-party homepages in our analysis.<\/p>\n<p>While blog lists were highly prominent across all sources, when a brand\u2019s own website was listed as the first recommendation, an internal landing page was more likely to appear than its homepage or best blog&nbsp;list.<\/p>\n<p>The table below shows the percentage of prompts that first-party mentions showed up in, by page&nbsp;type.<\/p>\n\n<table id=\"tablepress-504\" class=\"tablepress tablepress-id-504 tablepress-responsive tablepress-ahrefs-width-720px\">\n<thead>\n<tr class=\"row-1 odd\">\n\t<th class=\"column-1\"><\/th><th class=\"column-2\">Software<\/th><th class=\"column-3\">Agency<\/th><th class=\"column-4\">Products<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr class=\"row-2 even\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">General Landing Pages<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">37.2%<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">30.4%<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">0.4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr class=\"row-3 odd\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Blog List<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">34%<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">17.2%<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr class=\"row-4 even\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Homepage<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">15.6%<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">14%<\/td><td class=\"column-4\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr class=\"row-5 odd\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Documentation (incl .PDF)<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">7.6%<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">0.4%<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">0.8%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr class=\"row-6 even\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Blog Post<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">4.8%<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">0.4%<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">12.4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr class=\"row-7 odd\">\n\t<td class=\"column-1\">Product Page<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">0.4%<\/td><td class=\"column-3\"><\/td><td class=\"column-4\">87.2%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<!-- #tablepress-504 from cache -->\n<div class=\"sidenote\"><div class=\"sidenote-title\">Sidenote.<\/div> We aren\u2019t expecting columns to add up to 100%, since multiple page types can appear in a single response.<\/div>\n<p>A straightforward explanation for landing pages outperforming blog lists in the software and agency categories is that companies are far more likely to have created landing pages covering the services and features they offer, than to have made a self-serving blog&nbsp;list.<\/p>\n<p>Though they weren\u2019t the most prominent first-party page type, <strong>a self-promotional blog list still showed up in more than a third of ChatGPT responses in the software category when its publisher was recommended.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I found they were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/feed\/update\/urn:li:activity:7387131220175962112\/\">even more prominent<\/a> in Google SERPs,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Across 250 \u201cbest X software\u201d-style SERPs, 169 (67.6%) featured a list in which the company writing the article ranks itself number one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Perform any type of \u201cbest [seo \/ web design \/ branding] agency\u201d search in Google and there\u2019s a strong chance you\u2019ll see a self-promotional list ranking well.<\/p>\n<p>In the products category, it was rare for a company\u2019s own blog list to appear, simply because lots of product companies don\u2019t publish them.<\/p>\n<p>You won\u2019t see a page on Nike.com recommending Reebok, but they will publish an article on \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nike.com\/a\/best-winter-sneakers\">The Best Winter Sneakers<\/a>\u201d and promote Nike\u2019s own shoes throughout.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193676\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/best-sneakers-winter.jpg\" alt width=\"1100\" height=\"348\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/best-sneakers-winter.jpg 1100w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/best-sneakers-winter-680x215.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/best-sneakers-winter-768x243.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px\"><\/p>\n<p>There isn\u2019t anything new about creating pages to cover the markets you serve and the features you offer, but you might want to make sure those pages are valuable and up to&nbsp;date.<br>\n<\/p><div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"So, should you create self-promotional lists?\" data-section=\"section-eight\">\n<h2>So, should you create \u2018best\u2019 lists and rank yourself number one?<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>All of the data points to a clear answer: <strong>Agencies and SaaS companies should publish self-promotional \u201cbest\u201d lists.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Countless popular brands like Shopify, Slack, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Superside have written them, and there appears to be no downside from a traditional ranking or AI citation perspective.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also an argument for being proud of what you create, and for helping visitors navigate highly saturated markets.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That said, data is only one part of the equation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>During my own research, I\u2019ve often been frustrated by the lists I come across. Many are overly self-promotional, or simply don\u2019t link out to the alternatives they recommend.<\/p>\n<p>While his comments were aimed at creating bad user experiences in general, rather than targeting self-serving blog lists, Mark Williams-Cook made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/markseo_seo-activity-7386026793457164288-st2z\/\">a great point on LinkedIn<\/a> that poor user signals might catch up with you in due course.<\/p>\n<p>Siege Media founder Ross Hudgens <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/rosshudgens_should-you-create-best-x-articles-a-debate-activity-7381696942961152000-MmEY\/\">agrees<\/a> these signals are important, but argues you can position your own brand first and still provide value.<\/p>\n<p>Agency owner Wil Reynolds, whom I\u2019ve respected for years, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/wilreynolds_rcs-activity-7374127873877581824-BSvK\/\">had another opinion<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Any marketer worth a damn knows listing yourself at the top of a list hosted on your site doesn\u2019t build trust with buyers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t a common occurrence, but I did find examples of companies featuring lower down their own&nbsp;lists.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_193637\" style=\"width: 1310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-193637\" class=\"size-full wp-image-193637\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/doorloop-seventh.jpg\" alt width=\"1300\" height=\"456\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/doorloop-seventh.jpg 1300w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/doorloop-seventh-680x239.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/doorloop-seventh-768x269.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1300px) 100vw, 1300px\"><p id=\"caption-attachment-193637\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">DoorLoop placed itself 7th on this list of rental management software providers<\/p><\/div>\n<p>While it\u2019s admirable as someone with no connection to the business, there\u2019s also the argument that they\u2019re just helping competitors with their own marketing.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll have to decide which approach makes sense for your business, but let me at least share our current take.<\/p>\n<p><strong>At Ahrefs, our thinking is simple<\/strong>: We may publish more comparison posts as we roll out new features or enter new markets, but they\u2019ll continue to make up less than half a percent of our total blog content.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re not going to create them for every tool or potential use&nbsp;case.<\/p>\n<p>We won\u2019t always put ourselves in the top spot, as is <a href=\"\/blog\/best-ai-visibility-tools\/\" data-ahr=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/aeo-tools-optimize-for-llms\/\">already the case<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll continue to make it clear that <em>we<\/em> are the Ahrefs being recommended.<\/p>\n<p>(Almost every company promoting itself does so in the third person, as if they\u2019re subtly trying to overlook that they\u2019re writing about their own business.)<\/p>\n<p>And we\u2019ll keep linking directly to alternative solutions so visitors can research them on their&nbsp;own.<\/p>\n<p><strong>One change we <em>are<\/em> making thanks to this research is to celebrate more of our&nbsp;wins.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There were many cases where brands were mentioned alongside positive company updates, as shown below for Monday.com.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193678\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/monday-gartner-quadrant.jpg\" alt width=\"1200\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/monday-gartner-quadrant.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/monday-gartner-quadrant-680x186.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/monday-gartner-quadrant-768x211.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><\/p>\n<p>In another case, when gym management software <em>Kilo<\/em> was mentioned, it was alongside their announcement of earning an award from Capterra.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-193679\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/kilo-capterra-award.jpg\" alt width=\"1200\" height=\"586\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/kilo-capterra-award.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/kilo-capterra-award-680x332.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/kilo-capterra-award-768x375.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><\/p>\n<p>We could do a much better job there, with the potential added benefit of giving LLMs enticing commentary to use with any mentions.<\/p>\n<p>Our primary focus will continue to be on things that have naturally gotten us mentioned on the lists of others, like constantly updating our product with <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/new-features\/\">new features<\/a>, sharing original data and research, and being active where our audience is.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_193639\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-193639\" class=\"size-full wp-image-193639\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/zapier-competitor-analysis.jpg\" alt width=\"1200\" height=\"324\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/zapier-competitor-analysis.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/zapier-competitor-analysis-680x184.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/zapier-competitor-analysis-768x207.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><p id=\"caption-attachment-193639\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mentions from brands like Zapier are always nice to&nbsp;see<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As we\u2019ve done when we spent <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/event-marketing\/\">$400,000 running an event<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/sponsoring-creators\/\">$1M+ sponsoring creators<\/a>, or revealing how we decide <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/content-optimization\/\">the business potential of new blog posts<\/a>, we\u2019ll keep you in the loop about how our approach to AI search visibility evolves.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned for some behind-the-scenes updates I\u2019m working on&nbsp;there.<\/p>\n<p>If you have any thoughts on how I could improve the next iteration of this study or anything else you would like me to dive into, please let me know over on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/glen-allsopp-63084025\/\">LinkedIn<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ViperChill\">X<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that more than 800 million people use the platform each&nbsp;week. But what does it take to get mentioned and cited in its responses? Our latest research into top-of-the-funnel queries shows that recently<span class=\"ellipsis\">\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">Read more \u203a<\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[469,414],"tags":[],"coauthors":[473],"class_list":["post-193630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai-search","category-data-studies","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Do Self-Promotional \u201cBest\u201d Lists Boost ChatGPT Visibility? Study of 26,283 Source URLs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Just last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that more than 800 million people use the platform each week. But what does it take to get mentioned and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/best-lists-research\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do Self-Promotional \u201cBest\u201d Lists Boost ChatGPT Visibility? Study of 26,283 Source URLs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that more than 800 million people use the platform each week. But what does it take to get mentioned and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/best-lists-research\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SEO Blog by Ahrefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Ahrefs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-04T08:30:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-05T11:46:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/crm-software-lists.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"466\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Glen Allsopp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@viperchill\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ahrefs\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/best-lists-research\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/best-lists-research\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Glen Allsopp\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c687974bcec6a87cfb5d33a0f5a81dfb\"},\"headline\":\"Do Self-Promotional \u201cBest\u201d Lists Boost ChatGPT Visibility? 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