Small firms' own sites take 51% of citations across 7 niches and 2 markets, and established vendors take 37%. That is 38 questions in total.
Niches and markets
9
Questions asked
38
First-party share
51%
Third-party share
5%
Entry bar range
24 to 53
Markets mostly third-party
1 of 2
| Niche | Depth | Citations | First-party | Third-party | Bar | Median site | Cited examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial real estate appraisers | 4 questions, directional | 61 | 51% | 2% | 24 | 48 | boweryvaluation.com, losangelescommercialappraisal.com, appraisalinstitute.org, yelp.com |
| Estate planning attorneys | 4 questions, directional | 61 | 57% | 3% | 40 | 51 | carolinaestateplan.com, peckritchey.com, bestlawyers.com, yelp.com |
| Medical billing services | 4 questions, directional | 60 | 62% | 2% | 37 | 45 | ams-solutions.com, medicalbillingrates.com, medicalbillersandcoders.com, goodfirms.co |
| Equipment financing brokers | 4 questions, directional | 71 | 41% | 7% | 53 | 54 | gen-cap.com, ileasecapital.com, crestcapital.com, nerdwallet.com |
| Executive search firms | 4 questions, directional | 53 | 62% | 6% | 26 | 50 | talentfoot.com, shortlistreport.com, huntscanlon.com, forbes.com |
| Tax resolution services | 4 questions, directional | 61 | 33% | 8% | 46 | 65 | solvable.com, arise.tax, jacksonhewitt.com, cnbc.com |
| Commercial insurance brokers | 4 questions, directional | 54 | 54% | 9% | 45 | 45 | allenthomasgroup.com, biberk.com, alliant.com, nerdwallet.com |
Each niche has 4 questions, so rows are directional.
Firms' own sites take 51% of citations. Established vendors take 37%, and third-party sources take 5%, including publishers such as nerdwallet.com and forbes.com and the review site yelp.com. Forums and social take 2%.
The two professional services markets in the market study, personal injury firms and fractional CFO, lean on directories and community. Content share is 80 percent or more in 1 of the 2, which makes that one mostly third-party content.
| Type | Share of citations | Cited examples |
|---|---|---|
| Small providers' own sites | 51% | solvable.com (3 of 28), talentfoot.com (3 of 28), shortlistreport.com (2 of 28), allenthomasgroup.com (2 of 28), carolinaestateplan.com (2 of 28) |
| Established vendors and marketplaces | 37% | jacksonhewitt.com (4 of 28), crestcapital.com (3 of 28), alliant.com (3 of 28), insureon.com (3 of 28), medicalbillersandcoders.com (3 of 28) |
| Review sites | 1% | yelp.com (2 of 28), goodfirms.co (1 of 28) |
| Publishers and guides | 5% | nerdwallet.com (4 of 28), forbes.com (4 of 28), cnbc.com (3 of 28), investopedia.com (2 of 28), usnews.com (2 of 28) |
| Forums and social | 2% | facebook.com (3 of 28), reddit.com (3 of 28), youtube.com (1 of 28) |
Pooled, own-site share is 32% on general questions and 71% on specific ones. ChatGPT shows 32% against 84%, and Google shows 32% against 64%. The share is much higher on specific questions than on general ones.
| Question type | Questions | Citations | First-party | Third-party | ChatGPT first-party | Google organic first-party |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General | 14 | 218 | 32% | 9% | 32% | 32% |
| Specific | 14 | 203 | 71% | 2% | 84% | 64% |
| Both engines | 28 | 421 | 51% | 5% | 55% | 48% |
Own pages get cited here, so the next step is to score a page with the free AEO checker on how easily an engine can quote it.
Median site
41
Bar
31
Content share
67%
Tested site
23
Editorial verdict, as of 2026-10-02: Contested. The median cited site scores 41 and the bar is 31. Content share is 67%. The cited set is built from explainers and directory profiles, and individual firms are quoted directly too.
Content share is the share of cited sources that were articles about the category (67% here), and a vendor's own page does not count. A tested site scored 23 against a bar of 31. It cleared the bar on 0 of 5 questions, and on 5 of 5 questions a site below the bar was cited anyway.
Build the practice-area and state-specific explainers the engines quote, and claim your directory profiles. At this floor both are reachable.
66 domains were cited across the 5 questions; these are the most-cited, each with one page the engines read.
| Domain | Cited on | Score | Type | A page they cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| phxinjurylaw.com | 5 of 5 | 42 | Own site | phxinjurylaw.com |
| justia.com | 4 of 5 | 82 | Article | justia.com/lawyers/personal-injury/arizona/phoenix |
| attorneys.superlawyers.com | 4 of 5 | 51 | Article | attorneys.superlawyers.com/personal-injury-plaintiff/ariz… |
| 1800theeagle.com | 4 of 5 | 47 | Article | 1800theeagle.com/locations/east-phoenix |
| phillipslaw.com | 4 of 5 | 42 | Own site | phillipslaw.com |
| ramoslaw.com | 4 of 5 | 39 | Article | ramoslaw.com/phoenix-arizona |
| knappandroberts.com | 4 of 5 | 34 | Own site | knappandroberts.com |
| wyattinjurylaw.com | 4 of 5 | 31 | Own site | wyattinjurylaw.com |
| lernerandrowe.com | 3 of 5 | 50 | Article | lernerandrowe.com/arizona/phoenix |
| panish.law | 3 of 5 | 46 | Article | panish.law/phoenix-personal-injury-attorneys |
| lambergoodnow.com | 3 of 5 | 44 | Own site | lambergoodnow.com |
| mcordova.com | 3 of 5 | 43 | Own site | mcordova.com |
| karnsandkarns.com | 3 of 5 | 42 | Article | karnsandkarns.com/locations/phoenix-arizona-personal-inju… |
| garyphillipsaccidentlaw.com | 3 of 5 | 37 | Own site | garyphillipsaccidentlaw.com |
| warforyou.com | 3 of 5 | 35 | Article | warforyou.com/locations/arizona/phoenix |
Median site
38
Bar
29
Content share
93%
Tested site
11
Editorial verdict, as of 2026-10-02: Contested. The median cited site scores 38 and the bar is 29. Content share is 93%. A low-volume, reputation-led service still produced a wide cited set.
Content share is the share of cited sources that were articles about the category (93% here), and a vendor's own page does not count. A tested site scored 11 against a bar of 29. It cleared the bar on 0 of 5 questions, and on 3 of 5 questions a site below the bar was cited anyway.
LinkedIn is among the most cited domains here, so publish there under a named person as well as on your own site, and get into the fractional CFO roundups.
109 domains were cited across the 5 questions; these are the most-cited, each with one page the engines read.
The free audit shows whether AI engines can find and recommend your firm.