My team analyzed 15,000 prompts across ChatGPT and Gemini to see which content AI systems actually cite.

One pattern stood out immediately:

Longer content typically gets cited more often.
You would think it is shorter because they want to give concise answers, but that’s not the case.

As content length increased, AI visibility rose as well, peaking at around 1,500–1,750 words.

Interestingly, that’s almost identical to traditional SEO data… in which top-ranking pages on Google average around 1,400–1,800 words.

Why?

Longer content gives LLMs more context, explanations, and data to pull from when generating answers. And that matters more than ever because 60–65% of searches now end without a click, meaning the sources AI cites often get the only visibility.

But length alone isn’t enough. The pages that show up most often are clearly structured with headings, direct answers, and information that AI can easily extract. As well as dozens of other factors.

We know the winning formula to get content cited. If you want us to get you cited