Listicle

A listicle is an article built around a numbered or ranked list, such as "The 10 best CRMs for small teams." In AI search, "best X" listicles are among the pages that ChatGPT and other AI assistants cite most often when a prompt asks for a recommendation, since they hold a ready-made shortlist.

Why listicles matter in AI search

Listicles dominate the sources behind recommendation answers. Across 750 top-of-the-funnel prompts in software, products and agencies, Ahrefs found that "best X" blog lists made up 43.8% of all page types in ChatGPT's sources. In a September 2026 sample of 617,985 citations from seven AI engines, Otterly.AI counted 66.6% listicles.

The second figure needs context, and Otterly gives it. Most of its prompts asked for a ranking. When a prompt asks for a ranking, 73.2% of cited pages are listicles; when it asks for a comparison, 62.3% are head-to-head comparisons. The format follows the question.

How listicles get cited

A prompt like "best CRM for a small team" asks for a shortlist. The engine can search for it through several sub-queries such as "best CRM for startups", and listicles rank for exactly those searches. Three patterns stand out in the Ahrefs data:

Position matters. Brands placed higher on the lists that ChatGPT used were more likely to be recommended, though Ahrefs notes some bias in the measure.
Freshness matters. Of 1,100 cited lists with clear dates, 79.1% had been updated in 2025.
Quality is uneven. 35% of cited lists sat on low-authority domains, "many of which were highly questionable."

Commercial interest is common too: Otterly found that 44.8% of citations to listicles, comparisons and guides go to publishers that disclose they may earn from what they recommend.

Example: one tool, two lists

Ahrefs' prompts included searches like "best project management software", and its study documents what came back. Asana ranks itself first in its own list of the best project management tools. Zapier's list on the same topic puts Asana second. Both pages were used as sources in ChatGPT responses.

ChatGPT drew on self-promotional and independent lists alike. A brand absent from both had no list to be picked from, whatever the quality of its product.

Self-ranking lists are not an AI quirk. In 250 Google results pages for "best X software" searches, Ahrefs found 169 (67.6%) that featured a list whose publisher ranked itself first.

How to earn listicle citations without spamming

Get onto credible third-party lists first: give editors accurate pricing, access to test the product and facts they can check. If you publish your own list, make it worth citing: real testing, real competitors, clear criteria and regular updates, so that it brings information gain over the lists that already rank. Google's AI guide cites "7 Tips for First-Time Homebuyers" as commodity content that "typically adds little unique insight," and it treats pages made for every search variation, mainly to manipulate rankings, as scaled content abuse.

To find the lists that matter, Hawkscan lists the pages cited for your prompts, with how many answers cite each one and whether it mentions your brand. Cited lists that name your competitors but not you, your citation gap, are your first outreach targets. A place on an independent list is also earned media, the kind of source AI engines favor over brand-owned pages.