ChatGPT isn’t citing what you think it is

[0:00]Everybody thinks you need fresh recent content to show up in ChatGPT. That's not the case at all. The average cited page is 500 days old, still getting picked. It favors its general search index, uses semantic similarity to select and cite sources, and treats Reddit as a textbook it's embarrassed to admit it read. Basically, it goes to search. And if you have content close to the searches that AI is doing, there's a good chance you'll get cited. If your brand is in Reddit, there's a good chance you'll get cited. Here's something else. If your brand is in YouTube, there's a great chance you'll get cited. This is from Adweek, YouTube overtakes Reddit as the go-to citation source on AI search. You can see what ChatGPT searched. Put in a prompt. Copy this part of the URL that comes after /c/. Right click inspect. Click network. Refresh the page. Paste in what you copied. Click on the brackets with what you copied. Go to response. Search this for queries. You can literally see what ChatGPT searched. In this case, even though I prompted Spring fashion trends to watch this year, it searched Spring Fashion Trends 2026 women trends, and you can tell by the results that it gave me. It's all women. The lesson here, put some prompts you care about into ChatGPT. See what the searches look like. Use this language all in your content, on YouTube, on Reddit, on your website. Recommend your brand close to this language. This is what AI prefers. And you don't have to worry about being the freshest content. Learn more SEO that gets recommended by AI at compactkeywords.com