A portion of people stopped searching and started asking. Instead of opening ten results, they ask an assistant and get an answer with a few sources cited. If your site is not one of those sources, you do not exist in that conversation.
It is a new channel, and that is exactly why it is worth entering now: the contest is still open.
How an AI chooses what to cite
Put simply, three things weigh:
- Is the answer easy to extract? A page that answers in one short, direct paragraph is citable; a page that meanders for six paragraphs before saying anything is not;
- Does the format help? Marked-up questions and answers, lists and tables are easier to parse than a wall of running text;
- Is the source corroborated? Sites cited in several different places are preferred — the same logic as backlinks, applied to another system.
What to do on your pages
Answer before you contextualise
Start each page with a paragraph of 40 to 60 words that answers the question. Context comes after. That paragraph is what an AI cites and also what Google uses in a featured snippet.
Use questions as headings
A heading in the form of a question matches directly what the person asked the assistant.
Mark up your FAQs
Questions and answers marked up as structured data are read far more easily than the same information loose in the middle of the text.
Be specific and verifiable
A number, a timeframe, a concrete example. Vague text is not cited because it adds nothing to the answer.
The part that is not on the page
Being mentioned elsewhere remains decisive. A site that appears across several search sites and catalogues in its field has a far better chance of being treated as a reliable source than an isolated site.
It is the same work that always counted for search, and now counts for AI too — which is what the Magneth network does by publishing your listing across more than 100 search sites.
How long it takes
Format changes usually show up in days or a few weeks in some systems, and more slowly in others. It is faster than traditional SEO, and equally without guarantees.
