Mencoro counted 176,332 citations across 23,466 AI answers to participating brands’ tracked commercial questions in Spain from July 1 through September 30, 2026. Its Q3 study found that company websites made up most citations, but the source mix varied by platform—and more than half of citations went to domains that appeared for only one brand. These figures describe a bounded sample, not all AI answers or a universal list of sites brands should target.
What did Mencoro measure?
Mencoro’s Q3 2026 study examined answers generated for commercial buyer questions tracked by 42 brands with markets that include Spain. It covered eight sectors and four platforms: ChatGPT with web search, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. The brands are not named. Mencoro collected 23,466 answers and counted 176,332 citations across 22,193 distinct domains. Mencoro’s study and methodology describe the dataset.
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A citation means a source link an engine attached to an answer, counted at the registrable-domain level. Mencoro counted the source list returned with each answer, not every page that may have influenced the system. It removed each tracked brand’s own domains from the general rankings and reported them separately.
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The questions were selected by participating brands rather than sampled randomly from public queries. As Mencoro puts it in its methodology, “The questions are commercial questions chosen by each brand, not a random sample of what people ask AI.” Sector mix and brand selection therefore shape the results.
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Which types of websites received the most citations?
Company websites accounted for 72.6% of citations in Mencoro’s dataset. Directories, review and comparison sites, and marketplaces received 11.6%; news and magazines received 4.3%. Mencoro notes that it classified unlisted domains as company websites, which may slightly inflate that category.
The source pool was also fragmented: 57.4% of citations went to domains that appeared for only one brand. That makes a single all-purpose “top sites” strategy a poor fit for these findings. The sites cited depended substantially on the brand questions being tracked.
Did ChatGPT and Google AI cite the same sources?
Not consistently in this sample. The patterns below are shares of citations to particular domains or categories recorded during the study period; they are not stable descriptions of how the platforms always work.
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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11- Instagram: Google AI Overviews and AI Mode accounted for 97.6% of Instagram citations. Instagram appeared in answers for 40 of the 42 brands.
- TikTok: Mencoro recorded no TikTok citations from ChatGPT, while TikTok appeared in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode.
- News, forums, and public sources: ChatGPT accounted for 84.1% of citations to El País, 99.3% to Cadena SER, 63.9% to Reddit, and 94.4% to Spain’s official state gazette, BOE. Government and public bodies made up 11.7% of ChatGPT citations, compared with 3.5% for AI Mode.
- Retail and video: Google’s engines supplied 95.4% of Amazon citations. Perplexity contributed 191 of the 246 YouTube citations in the dataset, but its coverage was narrower.
Platform coverage was uneven: ChatGPT and AI Mode each covered 42 brands, AI Overviews covered 40, and Perplexity covered 16. Perplexity’s raw citation counts should not be compared directly with platforms that covered more brands.
How many sources did each platform return per answer?
Mencoro reported these averages for its study answers:
| Platform | Average sources per answer |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT with web search | 9.1 |
| Google AI Mode | 6.8 |
| Perplexity | 6.8 |
| Google AI Overviews | 6.5 |
These are Mencoro’s Q3 2026 averages for the tracked answers, not a general platform benchmark. Mencoro cautions that ChatGPT’s source list can include retrieved pages that are not linked in the answer text, so the counts do not necessarily represent visible in-text links in the same way across platforms.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How often did a brand’s own website appear?
Across answers to a brand’s own tracked questions, that brand’s website accounted for 4.8% of citations overall. Mencoro reported a range from 3.5% in ChatGPT to 6.6% in AI Overviews.
This is a share of citations in this particular dataset, not evidence that a brand’s own site is unimportant. The study counts attached source links, not every influence on an answer, and does not test whether changes to a website increase citations or business results.
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What can brands reasonably take from the findings?
The study supports investigating citation patterns for a brand’s own buyer questions, sector, geography, and target platforms. It does not establish that a specific marketing action—such as investing in digital PR or prioritizing social media—causes more citations. Those are recommendations or interpretations, not tested outcomes.
- Compare citation sources by platform rather than treating “AI” as one channel.
- Check the number of brands and answers behind any platform or sector comparison; denominators differ.
- Use the relevant source categories—such as official sources, social platforms, forums, or comparison sites—as questions to investigate, not a guaranteed checklist.
- Do not generalize Spain’s tracked commercial-query results to other countries, brands, or everyday AI conversations.
Mencoro provides sector breakdowns for categories represented by at least three brands, including healthcare, legal and finance, retail and ecommerce, industry and B2B, travel and leisure, and technology and marketing. Those breakdowns remain tied to the participating brands and their chosen questions.
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