Ahrefs recently published a study on ‘Best’ lists and how they are cited in ChatGPT.
You can find the full study here – I highly recommend reading it through.
This study is so interesting because it fully aligns with what we have seen across our SAAS clients for the last year. Let’s take a look at the findings and what they mean for your SEO strategy in 2026.
‘Best X’ Blog Lists Cover Almost 44% of Source Links
The study shows that, across 750 top-of-funnel prompts in ChatGPT across three categories (software, products, and agency recommendations), blog lists were the most prominent sources.
Interestingly, for software specifically, blog lists covered over 50% of result sources for top-of-funnel queries.
Listicles are dominating the SAAS scene. While this has always happened, even before AI, it is now even more important if you want your brand to be cited in AI.
Being Featured (Highly) In Multiple Listicles Is Important
Being featured in the top positions across multiple listicles is essential.
Brands featured in the top spots across multiple listicles have a much higher chance of being cited by AI, with 36.8% of software brands that feature in the top third position of listicles as sources cited in ChatGPT.
It doesn’t just matter that you get featured in several listicles. ChatGPT is biased towards brands that are featured in the top spots across multiple sources, and is more likely to recommend them as the top picks.
Recency Is Important
The study shows that across 1,100 blog lists used as research courses, 79.1% were updated in 2025.
This means that getting featured on listicles is important, but also being featured on newly published or updated listicles is just as important.
ChatGPT clearly prefers to train on fresh data where it can, to make sure it is giving the most up to date information to users.
What Does This Mean?
These findings correlate exactly with what we have seen across our SAAS clients:
- Brand mentions in listicles remain the best way to get cited in AI (see our article on this here)
- Being featured across multiple listicles is super important
- Alongside mentions, it is also essential that your brand claims the top spots in listicles to improve AI-visibility
If you aren’t actively building listicles or pitching to get featured in them, you’re going to fall behind your competitors, and fast.
What We’re Seeing At Spyndle
Across our clients, we’re seeing competition for listicles increase.
Brands are now publishing more listicles than ever before to fight for AI citations, which is making it more difficult for brands to see success with AI search.
If you don’t believe me, find your top ‘Best X’ keyword for your brand’s niche and search it on Google. Filter by recent results, and take a look at how many listicles have been published in the last month, as an example.
The result might just shock you.
Tactics We Use To Stay Relevant and Cited
Fortunately for us, we’re well ahead of the curve when it comes to AI visibility for our clients via outreach.
We only work with premium, niche-relevant websites where we know our listicles and other articles will get cited quickly. We know how to write the content to get it cited, and we know what keywords to target.
This all comes from years of experience and experimentation.
How Things Will Change
I’ve actually written a few articles on this topic already:
The Tl.Dr is that listicles will remain important, but quality will matter more than ever. Getting featured on the best listicles, the ones that will rank on Google for years to come, will be the priority.
Also, exploring other keywords that generate leads will be super important as well. This means targeting longer-tail ‘Best of’ listicles and longer tail queries that are unique to your brand and your customers’ problems.
An example of this is how we work with SAAS brands and use customer data to identify pain points and queries that could lead to demos and sales for our clients.
Thinking outside the box to claim AI search real estate for these queries is going to be key.
