Introduction

AI search assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity are choosing newer content more often than Google Search. A new study of 17 million citations proves it.

What's the problem it solves?

People are guessing how to show up in AI search results. This article uses real data to show whether keeping content up to date helps you get cited by AI tools.

Quick Summary

The study looked at almost 17 million URLs cited by AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, and Gemini. It found that AI assistants tend to use fresher content than Google's regular search results. On average, AI tools cite content that's about one year newer than what shows up on the first page of Google.

ChatGPT shows the strongest love for new pages, while Google’s AI Overview and standard search prefer older ones. Perplexity and ChatGPT also seem to list their sources starting from the newest, while Google shows older ones first. But “fresh” doesn’t mean “recent blog post.” Even AI-cited content is usually around 2.9 years old.

So yes, updating content matters-but not more than writing something good in the first place. Constant updates alone won’t trick AI search into noticing you.

Key Takeaways

• AI tools like ChatGPT cite newer content than Google’s regular search.
• ChatGPT’s citations are the freshest, often a full year newer than Google’s.
• Perplexity and ChatGPT list newer sources first in their references.
• Google’s AI Overviews behave more like traditional search and cite older stuff.
• Just updating dates won’t help if the content itself is not improved.

What to do

• Review your top-performing pages and update useful stats, examples, and key info.
• Don’t fake freshness by just changing the publish date - Google may ignore that.
• Create new, useful content regularly rather than obsessively updating old pages.
• Use Ahrefs Brand Radar or similar tools to track how often your content is cited in AI search.
• Pay attention to ChatGPT and Perplexity if you want to win in AI search-they’re leading the way.

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