Outbound links in AI answers rarely match the sources they cite, Konitzny finds
A four-week study of nearly 9 million answers shows citation URLs and clickable links diverge sharply, especially on Google's AI surfaces.
David Konitzny analysed close to 9 million answers across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode over four weeks. He published the findings on LinkedIn on 12 October 2026.
Outbound links appeared in 8.4% of ChatGPT answers, 17.5% of AI Overviews and 20.4% of AI Mode responses. Where links did appear, most pointed to homepages even when prompts named no brand: 70.7% on ChatGPT, 57.9% on AI Overviews and 59.3% on AI Mode.
The overlap between cited URLs and outbound link URLs was low. ChatGPT matched on 24.3% of exact URLs. AI Overviews matched on 6.3%. AI Mode matched on 4.1%. Comparing by domain rather than URL, the figures rose to 67.5%, 32.6% and 20.5% respectively.
Two different measurements
A citation records whether a page fed the answer. An outbound link records whether the user has a clickable path to a site from the answer. Konitzny's numbers show these two things identify different pages, particularly on Google's surfaces, where the exact-URL overlap sits in the single digits.
The homepage default matters here too. When an engine wants to send a user somewhere, it often picks the root domain rather than the specific page it drew from. A deep page can be the source without being the destination.
Checking it against your own data
We think the useful step is to measure both signals separately on your own domain before drawing conclusions. Pull the URLs cited in AI answers for your brand and the URLs linked out from those same answers. Compare them.
If your pattern looks like Konitzny's, the pages earning citations and the pages carrying clicks are different sets. Both sets need to work as answers on their own terms, and the homepage needs to work as a landing page for traffic arriving with no further context.