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ChatGPT & Perplexity Join Top Scraped Sites – Impact for Your Business
ChatGPT and Perplexity have cracked the top‑10 list of most‑scraped websites, trailing only TikTok, Google and Amazon. The shift signals a new era of AI‑driven visibility that marketers must master to stay ahead.
Key Highlights
- ✓ChatGPT and Perplexity rank 3rd and 5th in Decodo's most‑scraped sites list.
- ✓The ranking shift signals a move from keyword‑based SEO to AI citation visibility.
- ✓Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) emerges as a critical new marketing discipline.
- ✓Businesses can now monitor AI‑generated citations to benchmark against competitors.
What Happened
On October 27, 2026, Decodo released its annual Most‑Scraped Sites Ranking. For the first time, two generative‑AI answer platforms—ChatGPT and Perplexity—appear in the top ten, landing at 3rd and 5th place respectively. TikTok kept the crown, Google held steady at #2, and Amazon remained in the top‑10 mix. Seven of the previous year’s heavy‑hitters—YouTube, Walmart, eBay, and others—fell off the list, underscoring a rapid pivot in where businesses are looking for data.
Key Details
- Positions: 1️⃣ TikTok, 2️⃣ Google, 3️⃣ ChatGPT, 4️⃣ Naver, 5️⃣ Perplexity, 6️⃣ Make.com, 7️⃣ Target, 8️⃣ Amazon, 9️⃣ GitHub, 10️⃣ Stack Overflow.
- Methodology: Decodo aggregates anonymised scraping requests from its customer base, measuring the volume of data pulls each domain receives.
- Year‑over‑year change: This is the most dramatic reshuffle in the ranking’s three‑year history. Only three sites (TikTok, Google, Amazon) survived from the prior year.
- CEO Insight: Vaidotas Juknys, Decodo’s CEO, notes that “two years ago businesses scraped the web to see what people were searching for. Now they scrape AI platforms to see what people are being told.”
- Emerging term: Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) – the practice of tuning content so that AI answer engines cite and surface it.
What It Means For Your Business
1. AI Answer Engines Are New Real‑Estate
Traditional SEO focused on Google’s organic results. Today, ChatGPT and Perplexity are becoming the front doors to information. When a consumer asks a generative‑AI model a question, the model pulls from a curated set of sources—often the same sites that dominate Decodo’s scrape data. If your business isn’t in that pool, you’re invisible where decisions are being made.
2. Shift From Keyword Rankings to **Citation Rankings**
Instead of fighting for the top SERP slot, you now need to earn citations inside AI responses. That means:
- Structuring data with schema markup that AI models can parse.
- Publishing authoritative, fact‑checked content that aligns with the prompts users are likely to ask.
- Maintaining up‑to‑date product feeds, FAQs, and knowledge‑base articles that AI can safely quote.
3. GEO vs. SEO – A Complementary Strategy
GEO doesn’t replace SEO; it extends it. While SEO still drives traffic from traditional search, GEO ensures that when a user asks a conversational question, the AI model chooses your site as a trusted source. Think of GEO as the “citation SEO” for the age of ChatGPT.
4. Competitive Intelligence Gets a Boost
Scraping AI platforms lets you see how competitors are being portrayed in AI answers. You can track:
- Which of your rivals are cited most often.
- The tone and context of those citations.
- Gaps where your brand can step in with clearer, more useful content.
5. Practical Steps to Get Cited
1. Audit your existing content for AI‑friendliness (clear headings, concise answers, factual data).
2. Create “Answer‑First” pages that directly address common questions (e.g., “What are the benefits of local SEO for small retailers?”).
3. Leverage structured data (FAQPage, HowTo, Product) to give AI models easy‑to‑extract nuggets.
4. Build high‑quality backlinks from reputable sites—AI models weigh source authority heavily.
5. Monitor AI‑generated results using tools like Decodo, VisibilityAI, or custom scraping scripts to see where you appear and adjust accordingly.
6. The Bottom Line for Small Businesses
If you’re a local shop, a niche e‑commerce brand, or a service provider, being scraped by ChatGPT or Perplexity is now a signal of relevance. The earlier you embed GEO into your content strategy, the more likely you’ll appear in the AI‑driven answers that guide buying decisions.
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Action Checklist
- [ ] Review your website’s schema markup.
- [ ] Publish at least three new “answer‑first” blog posts per month.
- [ ] Set up a monitoring dashboard for AI citations.
- [ ] Reach out to industry publications for backlink opportunities.
- [ ] Align your SEO and GEO teams around shared KPIs (citation share, AI traffic, conversion rate).
By treating AI answer platforms as new ranking engines, you future‑proof your visibility and stay ahead of competitors still focused solely on Google.
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VisibilityAI can help you audit, optimise, and track your GEO performance, ensuring your brand gets the AI citations that matter.
Why This Matters For Your Business
The rise of AI answer platforms reshapes the digital discovery funnel. Where a consumer once typed a query into Google, they now ask ChatGPT or Perplexity, and the model returns a concise answer drawn from a handful of trusted sources. If your brand isn’t among those sources, you lose a direct line to the decision‑maker. For small and local businesses, this is a game‑changer: AI‑driven answers often replace the need to click through to a traditional SERP, meaning the citation itself can seal the sale. Visibility in AI responses also provides a new layer of competitive intelligence. By scraping ChatGPT and Perplexity, you can see which competitors are being quoted, what language is used, and where gaps exist in the market narrative. This insight lets you craft targeted content that not only answers the question but does so in a way that positions your brand as the authoritative choice. In short, mastering GEO and AI citation strategy will be as vital as traditional SEO for any business that wants to stay discoverable, credible, and profitable in the AI‑first search era.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)?
GEO is the practice of optimizing your content so that generative‑AI models like ChatGPT and Perplexity cite it in their answers. It involves schema markup, answer‑first copy, and authoritative backlinks.
How can I find out if my site is being scraped by AI platforms?
Use tools such as Decodo, VisibilityAI, or custom scraping monitors that track citation frequency in AI‑generated responses. These platforms provide dashboards showing which pages are most often referenced.
Do I need to change my SEO budget to include GEO?
Yes. Allocate a portion of your SEO spend to GEO activities—structured data implementation, answer‑first content creation, and AI citation monitoring—to complement traditional keyword‑focused efforts.
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