The 50 Most-Cited Websites in Google AI Mode (September 2026)

When Google AI Mode answers a question, it pulls from a relatively small set of trusted sources. We tracked every domain Google AI Mode cited across a broad set of US queries, then ranked them by mention share — the percentage of all citations (among the top sources) that point to each domain. The leader is www.reddit.com, capturing 17.9% of citations. We update this every month.

Mention share = a domain’s citations as a percentage of the summed citations of the top sources. Data via Ahrefs Brand Radar · United States, all topics · September 2026.

The 50 most-cited websites in Google AI Mode

#	Website	Mention share	vs last month	Pages cited	DR
1	www.reddit.com	17.9%	–	1,204,712	95
2	www.youtube.com	17.8%	–	1,553,020	99
3	www.google.com	12.5%	–	2,963,109	99
4	www.facebook.com	10.2%	–	655,267	100
5	www.instagram.com	5.7%	–	356,810	100
6	en.wikipedia.org	4.0%	–	100,864	97
7	www.quora.com	3.0%	–	142,486	92
8	www.amazon.com	3.0%	–	174,857	96
9	www.tiktok.com	2.7%	–	144,505	97
10	www.walmart.com	1.5%	–	88,508	92
11	www.ebay.com	1.1%	–	66,338	93
12	www.forbes.com	1.0%	▲ 3	18,713	94
13	www.homedepot.com	0.9%	▼ 1	47,242	90
14	www.lemon8-app.com	0.9%	▼ 1	47,411	81
15	www.liberia.ubuy.com	0.9%	▼ 1	55,950	85
16	www.healthline.com	0.8%	▲ 1	10,880	92
17	www.linkedin.com	0.8%	▲ 3	39,492	99
18	www.nytimes.com	0.7%	▲ 10	11,928	94
19	www.edmunds.com	0.7%	▼ 3	33,324	86
20	www.businessinsider.com	0.7%	▲ 1	14,364	92
21	www.nerdwallet.com	0.7%	▲ 1	5,422	90
22	www.yahoo.com	0.6%	▲ 3	26,810	94
23	www.target.com	0.6%	▼ 4	30,915	91
24	www.cnet.com	0.6%	▲ 2	12,372	91
25	www.kbb.com	0.6%	▼ 7	28,171	89
26	www.bestbuy.com	0.6%	▼ 2	27,886	89
27	www.tripadvisor.com	0.6%	–	37,756	93
28	www.etsy.com	0.6%	▼ 5	42,221	94
29	medium.com	0.5%	▲ 2	25,081	94
30	www.consumerreports.org	0.5%	▲ 7	11,271	90
31	finance.yahoo.com	0.5%	▲ 1	23,806	94
32	pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov	0.5%	▲ 1	24,370	95
33	www.pinterest.com	0.5%	▼ 4	28,212	97
34	www.webmd.com	0.4%	–	5,728	92
35	www.justanswer.com	0.4%	▲ 5	23,228	76
36	www.lowes.com	0.4%	–	16,685	88
37	www.goodrx.com	0.4%	▲ 1	33,816	85
38	www.thespruce.com	0.4%	▲ 3	6,278	90
39	www.cars.com	0.4%	▼ 4	18,312	85
40	www.amazon.co.uk	0.4%	▼ 10	21,501	93
41	www.cnbc.com	0.3%	▲ 4	5,633	92
42	www.tastingtable.com	0.3%	▲ 5	10,740	82
43	www.ubuy.mq	0.3%	NEW	19,613	40
44	www.trustpilot.com	0.3%	NEW	12,422	94
45	play.google.com	0.3%	▲ 4	17,840	99
46	www.seriouseats.com	0.3%	▲ 4	3,667	86
47	www.cargurus.com	0.3%	▼ 4	8,954	78
48	shopping.yahoo.com	0.3%	NEW	9,324	94
49	www.foodandwine.com	0.3%	NEW	4,586	88
50	www.amazon.ca	0.3%	▼ 11	15,252	92

Mention share = a domain’s citations as a percentage of the summed citations of these top sources. Pages cited = the number of distinct pages on the domain that were cited. DR = Ahrefs Domain Rating. Data: broad US queries, September 2026.

How this data is collected

The numbers come from Ahrefs’ Brand Radar, which tracks the responses AI platforms give to a large, search-backed set of real user queries. For this article, we looked at every domain Google AI Mode cited across a broad sample of US queries spanning all topics, then counted how often each domain appeared as a source.

This article is generated and automatically kept up to date every month by Agent A, our AI agent. Each month it pulls the latest Brand Radar data, recalculates mention share and rank movement, and refreshes the chart and table above — so the figures always reflect the most recent snapshot.

Use Ahrefs’ Brand Radar to track your brand’s presence in Google AI Mode

To track your brand’s presence in Google AI Mode, you’ll have to use a tool like Ahrefs’ Brand Radar.

Enter your brand, go to AI responses, select Google AI Mode, and you’ll see the queries your brand appears for.

To see how you’re comparing against your competitors in Google AI Mode, enter their brands in the “Your competitors” section.

Post bySi Quan Ong

Si Quan is a content marketer at Ahrefs. He has been involved in digital and content marketing for the past 5 years. Before he joined Ahrefs, he was content marketer at ReferralCandy, a 7-figure ARR SaaS company.

Si Quan has spoken at some of the industry’s largest conferences in the Asia region, which includes TIECon and Digital Marketing Skill Share. He has also written for some of the industry’s most popular blogs like Sumo and SmartBlogger.

His earliest work was marketing a product on Kickstarter, which eventually raised $150,000, more than double the original funding goal. The product was also featured on prominent tech websites, including Engadget, CNET and Digital Trends.

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