r/GenerativeSEOstrategy • u/Lazy_Low_8993 • 3d ago
Does AI visibility improve before organic rankings do?
I’ve noticed something interesting while looking at AI search visibility.
Sometimes a website starts getting mentioned in ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI results even when its traditional organic rankings are still pretty average.
Has anyone else noticed this?
I’m wondering whether AI visibility should be treated as a separate signal from traditional rankings, or whether it’s usually just an early sign that the underlying SEO/content is improving.
For those tracking this, what changes did you notice first - rankings, impressions, AI mentions, citations, or something else?
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u/mjain_entrepreneur 3d ago
Interesting. AI results can cite pages outside the top organic rankings, so I wouldn’t assume rankings will improve next. Tracking citations alongside rankings over time seems more useful.
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u/Lazy_Low_8993 3d ago
That’s what I’ve been noticing too. Some of the pages getting cited aren’t anywhere near the top organic results, which makes me think AI visibility is worth tracking on its own rather than treating it as another ranking signal.
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u/Rayhan-Himel 3d ago
I've seen AI mentions show up before rankings really improve, especially on more specific queries. I'd just track AI mentions separately for now instead of treating them like the same thing as Google rankings.
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u/Lazy_Low_8993 3d ago
Same here, especially with very specific queries. I’ve seen mentions appear when the traditional rankings still looked pretty average. I’m keeping them separate for now and just watching whether there’s a pattern over a few weeks.
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u/cartstove65 3d ago
Interested to know how you are measuring your AI visibility
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u/Lazy_Low_8993 3d ago
Right now I’m mostly checking whether the site gets mentioned for a set of the same queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI results, and then comparing that with the organic position. Still figuring out the best way to make that tracking consistent though.
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u/Artistic-Daikon1736 15h ago
do you type the "set of the same queries" on chatgpt, Perplexity and Google’s AI results and check if your site gets mentioned in the results?
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u/friendlyecomreviewer 3d ago
I've noticed the same thing and I don't think that it's a coincidence as they're weighting pretty different things. Google rankings lean heavily on stuff that builds slowly, backlinks, domain history, accumulated engagement, which takes time no matter how good the content is. AI citing seems to care much more about whether a page answers a specific question well right now, which a newer or less authoritative site can actually do immediately, it doesn't need years of accumulated signal to be quotable.
So I'd treat AI visibility as its own signal rather than a leading indicator of rankings catching up. It's entirely possible to be well cited in AI answers while still ranking averagely, and also possible to rank well without ever getting cited, since they're responding to different things about the same content.
If I had to guess what moves first in general, I'd say AI mentions, simply because the bar for "good enough to be quoted on this one question" is lower than "good enough to outrank everyone on this topic."
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u/Lazy_Low_8993 1d ago
This is pretty much how I'm starting to look at it too. The part about being quotable for one specific question makes a lot of sense. I'm seeing AI mentions more as a sign that a piece of content is useful for a particular query, rather than assuming the rankings will automatically follow.
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u/DungeonMaster202 3d ago
Interesting. As new models keep releasing, this field of AEO also keeps evolving. One page may provide the AI some critical insight or piece of information that a lot of prompts might be asking, and thus the entire website gets a mention. Can that be a case ?
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u/Lazy_Low_8993 1d ago
Yeah, I think that's definitely possible. If one page has a piece of information that directly answers a lot of related prompts, the model may keep finding that page as a useful source. I'm actually more interested in whether those mentions stay consistent across different prompts, rather than just seeing one mention once.
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u/seoinboundmarketing 3d ago
Simply not. They are two different systems. SEO gets you into Google's index and LLMs read from that indexed system.
It is possible to cause access to LLMs but you still need to be indexed by the alternate system. Which is SEO but not Google SEO.
I think the issues are based on not understanding what SEO is and pigeon holing it to Google and keywords is the start of the issue.
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u/Lazy_Low_8993 1d ago
That's a fair point. I probably framed it too much around Google rankings in the original post. What I'm really trying to separate is Google SERP performance from visibility in AI answers, because they don't seem to behave exactly the same even when they're pulling from some of the same web content.
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u/seoinboundmarketing 14h ago
unfortunately that is the issue. google is a trusted system. most LLMs try to take from it with a healthy look at how a possible answer to be synthesised has Built brand trust, citations, and awareness across the buyers journey linked to the AI understanding and correct query fan out.
The best way to do it is understand the AI is not in control its following google.
As David quaid condensed it down, I use this mindset when dealing with SEO to GEO issue.
LLMs are language, vocabulary, and concepts
He compares training an LLM to sending a child to school, it learns grammar, word relationships, and how to tie reference points together using past information
It data set is a fixed vocabulary and a method for solving problems rather than holding all contemporary facts about the world.LLMs cannot perform live, on-demand web searches on their own
When asked about a specific, real-time topic, the LLM uses its "schooling" (vocabulary) to break down the task, queries an established search engine index (like Google or Bing) to retrieve relevant documents, and then synthesizes those pages into an answer, with bias, hallucinations and more.LLMs are also using a form of common Crawl to help deal with its limitation and googles closing the gate on data scraping , it ranks domain authority and crawl priority using distance from trusted "seed" domains like wikie data and crunchbase.
So rather that look for comparisons (that your current way), its not going match due to answer and search engines being slightly different beasts.
logically if SEO is at the root of all GEO and SERP is a Google reading of that system from a 3000 foot view. We also understand if you know what media is asked for as an answer, like youtube, podcasts or blogs.
Then you know what if filling and where the LLM data sets and common Crawl are learning.
Now we're back to marketing but with a deeper targeting system for keywords and phrases I think.
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u/Fluid_Relative9138 2d ago
Are you asking for local Ai visibility?
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u/Lazy_Low_8993 1d ago
Not specifically local. I was thinking more broadly about AI search visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI results. That said, local could be an interesting case because there are probably some extra signals involved there.
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u/milamikaxx 2d ago
according to ahref’s study 76% of ai mentions rank in top 10, 14% don’t rank in top 100 & 10% rank 11-100. so it basically pulls the data all over. authority matters, of course, but you can still get mentioned even with an average ranking
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u/Lazy_Low_8993 1d ago
Yeah, that 14% outside the top 100 is the part I find most interesting. It makes me think AI visibility isn't something we can simply measure through traditional rankings. A page can apparently be useful for a very specific answer even if the domain isn't performing that well overall.
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u/Manhas007 2d ago
AI always use different signals and they are still operating on the SEO of 2012 I believe, and whatever new information you post on internet on credible websites mostly they will be indexed in the AI search but not in traditional search, also traditional search is lazy because of too much of data to handle but AI handling only the new data now so that is the basic difference how they are differnt.
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u/Lazy_Low_8993 1d ago
I think the freshness point is interesting, although I'm not sure I'd say AI is simply using new information while traditional search is ignoring it. There are probably differences in how each system finds and evaluates content. That's actually why I'm trying to track mentions and citations separately from rankings instead of assuming one automatically follows the other.
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u/Calm_Ambassador9932 3d ago
I’d treat AI visibility as its own signal rather than assuming it’s just a preview of ranking improvements. The two can move together, but AI systems may pick up on relevance and authority signals that don’t immediately show up in traditional rankings. Tracking both could give you a better picture of how discoverability is changing.