I’m back with another set of data pulled from Contender’s database of 86,572 fresh ChatGPT responses about B2B software.

This week, I wanted to see what actionable things we can learn from the website domains that ChatGPT cites the most often when people ask for software recommendations.

tl;dr: Slop listicles seem to be winning across many different (and surprising) types of websites. Hopefully that won’t last forever.

As of January 27, 2026:

You shouldn’t let this or any other lists of “top” cited websites distort your impression of what’s actually happening at scale in AI searches.

The full list of domains getting cited by ChatGPT is very long and diverse.

That means 88.4% of all cited URLs in the database come from websites outside the top 25 domains.

In fact, none of the top 25 sites is cited across every B2B software category. (There are 1,775 B2B software categories covered in our database. Think “legal CRM software” and “A/B testing tools.”)

Domains with broadest category coverage

The lesson here (which is a drum I love to bang on) is:

To get more visibility in ChatGPT’s responses, focus on getting brand mentions on the URLs that actually matter for your specific product category.

(You can get this information for any B2B software category in Contender in a few seconds.)

For example, the most-cited URLs for vacation rental software and 360 feedback software look very different from each other, and each looks very different from the list at the top of this post.

Most-cited domains for vacation rental software

Most-cited domains for 360 feedback software

So, the really interesting findings aren’t from the top 25 list itself, but in the data that appears when we do a bit of digging into the patterns behind it.

I expected ChatGPT to use Wikipedia to understand the competitive landscapes of different product categories (e.g., using the category page for “software testing tools”).

But it turns out ChatGPT mostly looks for information on specific brands. Each one of the top 10 most-cited URLs from Wikipedia is a page dedicated to a single software brand.

Top 10 most-cited Wikipedia pages

Given this, I’d think of Wikipedia less of a way to make yourself known to ChatGPT (although it probably helps for that, too), and more of a source that ChatGPT checks for details about you.

That is, if you’re trying to make sure ChatGPT is saying accurate things about your brand, it’d be smart to have an up-to-date page for your brand on Wikipedia.

This builds on one of last week’s takeaways about Reddit:

On sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Medium that are built on user-generated content, useful insights about any particular topic are spread across many different URLs.

So the likelihood of ChatGPT revisiting any given URL on these sites is lower than it is on a site where a given topic (e.g., the best AI CRM software) is covered by very few URLs.

If you ask ChatGPT for software recommendations, it will very likely check a number of listicles. It seems to prefer listicles by far over any other type of content in these situations.

And it’ll reference listicles on sites you don’t even think of “listicle sites.”

For each of the websites in the Vendor category in the top 25 (excluding Microsoft and Amazon), 100% of the top 10 cited URLs were listicles.

In fact, all of the top 10 URLs from each of these sites had page titles starting with “Top 10”.

Here’s an example from moldstud.com (rank #13), a site and company I’d never heard of before compiling this list.

Top-cited URLs from moldstud.com

This is how all of these sites from product and service vendors made it into the top 25 most-cited domains — they all produce software listicles at scale, for better or worse. (More on that, below.)

And these days, ChatGPT rewards that behavior.

Did you think ChatGPT was referencing thoughtful, nuanced conversations in Reddit threads when it went looking for information on the best brands in a software category?

Well, think again.

The top-cited Reddit URLs feature listicles. Full stop. There’s clearly no consideration for author bias, credibility, or social proof.

You get the idea.

Most-cited URLs on reddit.com

This was perhaps the most disheartening finding in this research, because it points to all the content slop we have to look forward to across all major UGC platforms.

Maybe part of the reason people get so excited about using Reddit for GEO/AEO is that it’s so easy to game ChatGPT responses with it. 🫠

The same way any random person can spam a listicle to Reddit, anyone can spam a listicle to “Pulse,” LinkedIn’s pages with blog-like posts.

And that’s primarily what gets cited by ChatGPT.

Most-cited URLs from linkedin.com

You see this same pattern extend across any high-profile site where someone can publish a listicle, including sites from the top 25 like Medium and dev.to.

The most-cited URLs from Facebook all came from Facebook Groups.

Interestingly, no listicles this time. Instead, it’s all “vs.” content — people asking for comparisons between two product options.

For example, this one asking whether to use Unity or Unreal to build VR apps for Meta.

From YouTube, ChatGPT largely cites “listicles” (video reviews of a list of software from a particular category), but it seems like it’ll also rely on product demos direct from vendors in narrow niches like winery software and document management systems for aviation manuals. (It’s a thing!)

So if you’re in a niche software category with not a lot of buyer content available, it can’t hurt to put a short product demo on YouTube with something like “best X software” in the title.

The top 5 most-cited YouTube videos

We’ve already established that ChatGPT doesn’t discriminate against obviously-biased vendor spam on Reddit.

I also saw it repeatedly cite obvious AI-generated slop from **sites that any Google Quality Rater would identify as low quality.

Moldstud (incredible name, not in a good way) is the 13th most-cited domain in the database in terms of unique URLs cited by ChatGPT, and 20th in terms of overall number of citations.

It is not small potatoes.

It worked its way into ChatGPT’s good graces by creating awful listicle slop about dev tools at scale.

It’s no wonder so many people are so willing to churn out absolute reams of slop. At least for the moment, it’s working.

As an SEO having seen Google fight a long and ongoing battle against slop showing up in results, it’ll be interesting to see if and when the AI providers follow suit.

We’re clearly living in the age of slop winning in ChatGPT.

If Google’s history is any indicator (and it should be), we shouldn’t expect this to continue indefinitely.

Here are my actionable takeaways for non-sloppers:

Ignore generalized lists you see on Linkedin and focus on what’s getting cited in your specific industry or product category. (You can get this information in a few seconds in Contender for any B2B software category.)

If you made it this far, I’d love to know what other conclusions you took away from the data. Just hit the reply button to let me know.

Cheers,

Mike