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Data study of 87004 Perplexity answers over 13 months: the platforms it cites most, its citation density and how it differs from the four other AI.
Perplexity was measured on 87004 answers over 13 months. Its most cited platform is YouTube at 3.46%, and it names on average 3.3 sources per answer, which places it fifth of the five models measured.
Perplexity shows its sources on screen, which makes it the model where a citation is most likely to become an actual visit.
A citation rate of 2% means the source was cited twice for every 100 measured answers. Rates are computed per model against the number of answers of that model, so a model with a smaller sample never distorts a column. A source cited several times inside one answer is counted once per company block, which keeps a single verbose answer from dominating a month.
The distribution is worth as much as the ranking. The top three sources hold 54% of the citations counted in this table, 5 platforms sit above 1%, and YouTube is cited 2.3 times more often than Reddit. A market where three sources hold most of the citations rewards depth on those three rather than presence everywhere.
Citation density on Perplexity moved from 3.9 to 1.5 sources per answer over the period. The platforms it cites moved too: YouTube is now first at 3.46%.
Perplexity cites a moderate number of sources per answer and links them visibly, so the traffic value of a citation here is higher than on models that summarise silently. Its preferences lean towards content that answers a question directly and towards platforms that host structured, comparable information. For a business, that means a page that answers one question completely is worth more than a long guide that answers ten partially.
Every number on this page comes from the public Sorank dataset. The underlying figures, the monthly detail and the filters are available here:
Open the source data on data.sorank.com
Data updated on 2026-08-26.
This study is free to quote, in an article, a deck or a report. Please cite the source and the measurement period, because the numbers move every month.
Sorank (2026). Perplexity Citation Study: What Perplexity Cites in 87004 Measured Answers. Sorank GEO studies, measured on 301025 AI answers collected between August 2025 and August 2026. Available at https://www.sorank.com/data/perplexity-citation-study
The same panel, read from another angle:
This study describes a market. Sorank measures your site: which questions mention you, which mention someone else, and what to publish to change that, tracked weekly across the same five AI.
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YouTube at 3.46%, ahead of Reddit at 1.51% and TripAdvisor at 1.48%. The full ranking is on this page, and the source data is public on data.sorank.com.
On 301025 answers from five AI, collected between August 2025 and August 2026, with every cited source extracted and normalised. The citation rate is the number of citations per 100 measured answers. The public dataset is on data.sorank.com.
In traffic terms, usually yes, because the sources are displayed as links next to the answer. In influence terms, a citation on a model your buyers actually use matters more than the interface.
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