AI RESEARCH
Disentangling Answer Engine Optimization from Platform Growth: A Log-Based Natural Experiment on ChatGPT Referral Traffic
arXiv CS.CL
•
ArXi:2606.04362v1 Announce Type: cross Large language model (LLM) "answer engines" such as ChatGPT now send measurable referral traffic to the open web, and a practice analogous to search engine optimization, here called Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), has emerged. Public AEO success stories typically quote large raw growth multiples, but raw referral growth is confounded by the rapid platform-level growth of the answer engines themselves.