RankEcho reports
RankEcho publishes original measurement rather than commentary. Three reports are live. The State of AI Citations study analysed 384 observations across four engines and found cross-engine agreement of roughly 19%, meaning the engines rarely cite the same sources for the same question. The Website AI Readiness analysis covered 5,542 business websites and found 33.7% carrying no structured data and 10.9% returning no server-rendered content. The Proof Ledger is a running record of tracked prompts before and after fixes shipped, including the cases where nothing moved. Every report states its population, its method, and what it does not show.
State of AI Citations, Q3 2026
384 observations across four AI engines, testing whether they cite the same sources when asked the same question. The headline finding is how rarely they agree: cross-engine agreement sits near 19%, which means visibility on one engine predicts very little about visibility on another.
The study also measured answer stability across repeat runs of identical prompts, and Google AI Overviews coverage, which appeared for a minority of queries but cited generously when it appeared. The full 48-prompt battery and the underlying dataset are published alongside the report.
Website AI Readiness, July 2026
5,542 business websites analysed for whether AI engines can extract anything usable from them. 33.7% carry no structured data of any kind; 10.9% return no server-rendered homepage content.
The finding runs against the common framing. Crawler blocking gets the attention, but in this sample the more frequent barrier is extraction: engines can reach these sites and still find little they can confidently attribute. The population is local and small-business websites from public listings across US regions, which is stated in the report because it bounds what the figures apply to.
Live citation data
Two surfaces update as data accumulates rather than being fixed to a publication date.
The State of AI Citations page carries rolling figures across audits as the sample grows. The Proof Ledger records tracked prompts before and after fixes shipped, with the misses left visible, because a ledger that hid them would prove nothing.
How these reports are made
Same rules across all of them. Every figure comes from observations RankEcho collected rather than from other people's studies. Every report states its population and sampling method, so a reader can judge what the numbers apply to. Excluded data is reported as excluded rather than quietly dropped.
Results that did not move are published alongside results that did. A research programme that only publishes wins is marketing with a chart attached, and it would undercut the one thing these reports are for.
The datasets are available where publishing them is practical, so the analysis can be checked rather than taken on trust.
Citing this research
The reports are free to cite with attribution to RankEcho and a link to the report page. Where a dataset is published, it carries its own licence terms on the report page.
For questions about method, or to request a cut of the data that is not published, the contact page reaches us directly.
Frequently asked questions
Three things: the State of AI Citations study covering 384 observations across four engines, a Website AI Readiness analysis of 5,542 business sites, and the Proof Ledger, a running record of tracked prompts before and after fixes shipped. Each states its population, method, and limits.
In our Q3 2026 study of 384 observations across four engines, cross-engine agreement was roughly 19%. In practice that means being cited by one engine predicts very little about whether another cites you for the same question, so single-engine measurement understates the problem.
Yes, with attribution to RankEcho and a link to the report page. Where a dataset is published it carries its own licence terms on that page. For method questions or unpublished cuts of the data, use the contact page.
Yes. The Proof Ledger publishes tracked prompts where citations did not move alongside those where they did, and each study states what it does not show. A research programme that only reports wins is marketing with a chart attached.