Should I write listicles to get cited by AI?

Only if you can beat the lists that already exist. List style pages collect roughly 44% of AI citations, but most of those citations go to established publishers, and a small site's list usually ranks too low to be read at all. For a small site, a focused explainer that list writers and assistants rely on for one fact is usually the better bet.

Why do listicles get so many AI citations?

Because a list is shaped like the answer to a comparison question. When someone asks which tool is best, a page that already names the options with a verdict for each is easy for an assistant to quote. That advantage goes mostly to publishers with authority in the category, whose lists rank where retrieval actually reads.

What kind of article gets cited by other websites?

One that explains a single concept fully and contains something nobody else has. A measured number, a test result or a clear definition gives list writers and assistants a reason to come to your page for that fact. On one of my sites, two explainers of this kind rank around position 13 while the site's own lists sit at 70 or worse.

Write Explainers. Get Cited by the Listicles

¶ MANIFESTOTHE CONTRADICTION

01Two true things that seem to disagree

Here is the first one. Research on where AI answers take their sources puts list style pages, the best of and top ten kind, at roughly 44% of citations. No other format comes close. If you only read that number, the strategy writes itself: publish lists. Here is the second one. On one of my own sites, the two best ranked articles are long explainers about a single narrow concept, sitting at average positions 12.76 and 12.87. Every list and generic how to on the same site sits at position 70 or worse. The rule I took from that, and now apply everywhere, is to write explainers and stop writing lists.

Both findings are real, and they are not about the same thing. The first describes where citations land across the whole web. The second describes what a small site can actually win. A citation share tells you which format wins. It does not tell you whether you are the one who wins it.

Who writes the lists that get cited

The lists that collect citations are mostly written by publishers who already have authority in their category: review sites, large media brands, directories with years of links behind them. When a small site publishes its own top ten, it is entering the most crowded format on the web against the strongest players in it. A search that fans out reads the first page or two of results. A list on page seven is not losing a close contest. It is simply never read, and a page that is never read cannot be quoted.

// THE SUPPLY CHAIN~~WHO FEEDS WHOM~~

01 · YOUThe explainerOne concept, explained fully, with a number nobody else has.

02 · A PUBLISHERThe listTen options, a verdict each, sourced from pages like yours.

03 · AN ASSISTANTThe answerCites the list, and through it, the source the list leaned on.

ONE OF MY SITES · AVERAGE SEARCH POSITION

Explainer A

12.76

Explainer B

12.87

Its own lists

70+

Longer bar, higher position. Page two gets read by a search that fans out. Page seven does not get read at all.

¶ MANIFESTOWHERE THE LISTS GET THEIR FACTS

02Every list is built on somebody’s explainer

The supply side

A good list does not invent its facts. It gathers them: what a format is, why one option is faster, which tool handles a particular case. Those facts come from somewhere, and the somewhere is usually a page that explains one thing properly. That is the opening for a small site. You do not need to outrank the list. You need to be the page the list writer and the assistant both reach when they need the underlying fact. Be the source a list cites, not the eleventh list nobody cites. It is the same logic as the pages you do not own: some of your most valuable mentions will live on other people’s sites.

What makes an explainer worth citing

The explainers that did well for me share three features. They are about one concept, not a category. They answer the question in the opening lines, which matters because the first thirty percent of a page carries a disproportionate share of what gets quoted. And at least one of them carries a number nobody else had. One measured how much a common encoding inflates an image file: 33.3% before compression, only 2.9% after it, tested on the site’s own nine images. A measured number is the one thing a list writer cannot get anywhere else, so it is the thing they come to you for.

EXTRACTED — THE SENTENCE THIS ENTRY EXISTS FOR

Lists win the citation share. Explainers win the lists.

¶ MANIFESTOWHAT I WOULD DO

03The order of work for a small site

When a list is the right call

I am not saying never write one. If your category has no good list yet, or you are the only person who has actually tested the options, a list can be the explainer, because the testing is the original part. The failure mode is the eleventh generic list in a category that already has ten strong ones. Before writing any list, search the question yourself and look at the first page. If the lists there are thorough and dated, yours will not replace them. Write the explainer they are missing instead. Before you write a list, find out who already owns the list, and write the page their list is missing.

How to tell it is working

The way to check whether it is working is not your own ranking for the list query. It is whether the list writers start linking to you, and whether your explainer shows up as a source in answers to the narrow question it covers. That second signal is the one that compounds, the same way a free tool earned ten thousand citations: by being the obvious place for one specific answer. One page that is the obvious answer to one question outlasts ten pages that are a decent answer to many.

Tomorrow: five things I expect to break in 2027, each with a way to prove me wrong.