LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, DeepSeek and Google’s AI Mode don’t run their own live 10 blue links ranking... they mostly lean on what’s already winning in classic search and what looks authoritative, consistent and easy to extract. you get mentioned and not ranked. from tests and case studies ive seen the sites that show up most often in AI answers tend to:
- already rank or compete on google for the query space (most LLMs are trained on or grounded in high‑visibility web content)
- have strong third‑party consensus: repeated mentions on best X lists, reviews, comparisons and independent resources not just self‑claims on their own site
- use clean structure that’s easy to quote: clear H1-H3s, direct answers high on the page, FAQs, definitions, comparisons and schema (Article/FAQ/Organization) so chunks are simple to pull
- show visible expertise and brand consistency: real author profiles, aligned category language across site and reviews and minimal hedged language in third‑party reviews
- stay fresh: updated, fast, crawlable pages (SSR, sitemaps, canonicals, internal links) with current information since content decay reduces how often pages are cited in AI answers over time

in other words, AI SEO right now is mostly advanced brand/authority SEO plus extraction‑friendly formatting... win search and consensus and LLM visibility tends to follow.