Key takeaways
- Google’s AI Overviews spread credit wide. Each answer we tracked cited about 8 different websites. ChatGPT cited about 3.
- YouTube showed up in 36% of the AI Overview answers and in none of the ChatGPT answers.
- Reddit appeared in 26% of AI Overview answers and 11% of ChatGPT answers.
- 59% of the ChatGPT answers that cited us were about price. Plain, honest pricing pages get quoted.
- Directories like Angi and HomeGuide showed up on both engines, often next to a business’s own site.
What we looked at
Every month we pull the questions where AI engines cite pushleads.com, along with every other source cited in the same answer. The data comes from DataForSEO’s LLM mentions index. For October 2026 that was 206 answers: 140 from Google AI Overviews and 66 from ChatGPT.
Most of those questions come from home-services topics we write about for restoration and contractor clients: what crawl space encapsulation costs, the types of black mold, what IICRC certification means, how to choose a water restoration company. The rest are about marketing itself, like what a digital marketing agency costs.
That makes this a useful sample for one question: when an AI engine decides a page is worth citing, which other sources does it trust enough to cite alongside it?
Finding 1: AI Overviews cite far more sources than ChatGPT
The average AI Overview answer cited 8 different websites. The average ChatGPT answer cited 3.2. Across the 140 AI Overview answers we saw 472 different websites. Across 66 ChatGPT answers we saw 152.
In practice, that means getting into an AI Overview is a wider door. There are more seats at the table, and most of them go to sites that are cited only once or twice. ChatGPT is pickier, so each citation it gives is worth more.
Finding 2: YouTube matters to Google and not, so far, to ChatGPT
| Source | AI Overviews (140 answers) | ChatGPT (66 answers) |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 51 (36%) | 0 |
| 37 (26%) | 7 (11%) | |
| Angi | 17 | 6 |
| HomeGuide | 11 | 7 |
| Clutch | 10 | 1 |
| HomeAdvisor | 8 | not in top sources |
| IICRC | 7 | not in top sources |
YouTube was the most-cited source after our own site in AI Overviews, appearing in more than a third of them. It didn’t appear in a single ChatGPT answer in this sample. Google owns YouTube, so this isn’t a surprise, but the size of the gap is worth planning around. If Google’s AI answers matter to your business, a short video that answers the same question as your page gives you a second way in.
Finding 3: Reddit is in the mix on both engines
Reddit threads showed up in about a quarter of AI Overviews and about one in ten ChatGPT answers. AI engines seem to use Reddit as a check on what real people say, especially for cost and “is it worth it” questions. You can’t control those threads, but you can make sure that what customers say about you there lines up with what your website says.
Finding 4: ChatGPT quotes prices
39 of the 66 ChatGPT answers that cited us, 59%, were price questions: how much mold cleanup costs, what a water restoration job runs, what local SEO should cost. In AI Overviews the share was lower, 42 of 140, or 30%.
Many businesses avoid publishing prices. These numbers suggest that’s a missed opportunity. A page that gives honest ranges, explains what moves the price up or down, and says when to get an inspection gives an AI engine something concrete to quote.
Finding 5: Directories sit next to your website, not instead of it
Angi, HomeGuide, HomeAdvisor and Clutch all appeared regularly, often in the same answers as a business’s own site. Industry bodies did too: IICRC, the restoration certification body, appeared in 7 AI Overviews. A complete, consistent listing on the directories and associations that cover your industry is part of how AI engines confirm a business is real and qualified.
What I’d do with this
- Pick the five questions your customers ask most and make sure each one has a clear page on your site that answers it directly.
- Record a short video answering the same question and link the two. That covers AI Overviews’ YouTube habit.
- Publish honest price ranges, with what changes them.
- Keep your directory and association listings complete and identical to your website.
- Track which AI answers cite you, and which sources they cite next to you, every month.
Limits of this data
This is one month of data, and only answers that already cite pushleads.com, so it shows what sits next to a cited page, not every possible source. The questions lean toward restoration and home-services topics. DataForSEO’s index samples real questions; it doesn’t capture every answer an engine gives. We’ll repeat this each month and note what changes.
Data: DataForSEO LLM mentions, pulled October 2026. Client data is not included; all answers analyzed cite PushLeads’ own site.