Ahrefs counts how often ChatGPT cites each OpenAI publisher partner

A brand that wants to show up in a ChatGPT answer has a decision to make. Which of the big publishers is worth a pitch? Ahrefs just published a count of how often ChatGPT cites each one. The data comes from 5.5 million US ChatGPT answers in its Brand Radar index. OpenAI has signed content deals with 85 domains since 2023.

Ten of those partner domains sit in the 50 sites ChatGPT cites most. Another 47 are in the top 500. Vogue is the most cited partner at 42,108 citations. Car and Driver takes 41,603. Tom's Guide 36,439, Good Housekeeping 35,728, TechRadar 31,415. All five are review and lifestyle sites, not news.

The news partners come lower

The Washington Post is the most cited news partner at 25,614 citations. It ranks 48th overall. The Guardian is 50th with 24,336. The Wall Street Journal reaches 18,890 at rank 60. Business Insider gets 16,415. The Associated Press takes 15,761. The Financial Times gets 7,588. Axios reaches 7,469. Ahrefs director of content Ryan Law writes that review and lifestyle sites take the top spots. The reason, he says, is that most ChatGPT users ask product and how-to questions.

Three big European partners get almost no US citations. Welt gets 304. Bild 77. Politico 10. Politico EU zero. Ahrefs says Brand Radar's index is US-only. Spanish and French partners such as El País (1,762) and Le Monde are under-counted for the same reason.

How the partner share has grown

Ahrefs ran an earlier study on this. It tracked partner sites' share of ChatGPT's 200 most cited domains. In March 2026 partner sites took 7.5 percent of citations. By July they took 15.8 percent. In late September they still held 12.5 percent. Ryan Law says these publishers now give brands the shortest path to a ChatGPT citation.

Two caveats sit under the ranking. Citations move day to day. Glen Allsopp tracked 1,300 prompts daily for four weeks. Only about a quarter of the pages ChatGPT cited for a prompt were cited again the next day. The biggest sites were steadier. They moved about 14 percent from one day to the next. So the list ranks sites by rough order of magnitude, not as a league table. The data is also US-only.

Ahrefs says the practical move is to open Brand Radar. Find which partner sites already appear in your niche. Then pitch those sites for a review or a feature. Any article they publish has a stronger chance of showing up in a ChatGPT answer. It comes with attribution and a link back.

Source

Every OpenAI Publisher Partnership, and How Often ChatGPT Cites Them, Ahrefs, by Ryan Law.