In July 2026, Microsoft's Bing AI Performance report showed my website, lilachbullock.com, being cited in AI answers about 540 times a day. From 19 to 23 October 2026 it averaged 31,300 a day, with a best day of 35,200. Over the same stretch, my Google impressions grew from 113,115 in the 30 days to 13 May to 2,096,016 in the 30 days to 24 October.
On 26 October 2026 I gave my first AI talk, and the room was blown away by my numbers. So here they are in one place: every figure, the date I read it and the report it came from, ready to check, quote or link to. Then what moved them, and a 15-minute check you can run tonight.
The numbers at a glance
| What I measured | Before | Latest | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI citations a day | About 540 (July 2026 average) | 31,300 (19 to 23 Oct 2026 average) | Bing AI Performance |
| Best single day | 13,500 (3 Oct) | 35,200 (20 Oct) | Bing AI Performance |
| My pages cited by AI on a typical day | About 60 (July) | 2,200 to 2,300 (20 to 23 Oct) | Bing AI Performance |
| AI citations over three months | 23,400 (read 30 Jul) | 594,900 (read 25 Oct) | Bing AI Performance |
| Google impressions, 30 days | 113,115 (to 13 May) | 2,096,016 (to 24 Oct) | Google Search Console |
| Google impressions, 7 days | 22,653 (to 13 May) | 1,031,672 (to 24 Oct) | Google Search Console |
That's more than 50 times more AI citations a day than in July, and more than 18 times the Google visibility I had in May. It isn't a start-from-zero story. May was my rock bottom after my traffic crashed, and after 23 years in marketing I knew what I wanted to build. What changed was how fast I could build it.
What an AI citation is, and why I lead with it
An AI citation is when an AI answer names one of your pages as its source. Microsoft counts them for its own AI answers, including Copilot, in the AI Performance report inside Bing Webmaster Tools. It's the most direct proof I've got that AI assistants trust my site enough to quote it. Google impressions count how often my pages appeared in Google's results.
The climb, date by date
- 13 May 2026: Google rock bottom, 113,115 impressions in 30 days.
- July: AI cites me about 540 times a day (11 to 31 July average, 539), across about 60 pages a day.
- 30 July: 23,400 AI citations over the previous three months.
- August: 1,141 a day on average.
- 1 to 15 September: 2,420 a day.
- 15 to 17 September: the first big jump, from 3,900 citations on 15 September to 8,400 on the 16th and 13,300 on the 17th. From 16 to 30 September the average was 10,420 a day.
- 30 September: 831,210 Google impressions in 30 days.
- 1 to 8 October: 11,225 a day, best day 13,500 on 3 October.
- 14 October: 1,379 of my pages had been cited in the previous three months, for 1,529 different questions, more than double the 720 questions on 15 September.
- 17 October: 1,246,624 Google impressions in 30 days.
- 19 to 23 October: the second jump. 31,300 citations a day on average, 35,200 on 20 October, around 2,300 pages cited a day.
- 24 October: 2,096,016 Google impressions in 30 days, and 1,031,672 in the last seven days alone.
What moved the numbers
There wasn't one trick, and I can't point to a single switch behind either jump. These are the five ideas I stuck to every single day, and what happened when I did.
1. Answer first
Every page opens with the answer, before any story or background. AI is an answer machine: if your answer is buried in paragraph six, it'll quote someone else.
2. Sections built to be quoted
I write sections that make sense on their own: one question, one short answer, then the detail. That's the part AI lifts. One example from Bing's own report: for the question about highlighting brand milestones in pinned tweets, my share stood at 11.39% on 2 September, when I added a short, self-contained answer section. By 21 October it was 38.02%.
3. A plain guide for AI (llms.txt)
My site has an llms.txt file, a plain-text map that tells AI tools what the site covers and which pages matter most. I keep a list of my most cited pages in it, updated from the Bing report. I can't prove it moved the numbers on its own, and I won't pretend I can. It takes minutes, so I do it. If you're new to it, here's what llms.txt is and how to write one.
4. Answer every question, with an editor's eye
AI can only cite a page that exists, so I set out to answer every question my readers ask, and I published a lot. AI doesn't only quote me in English, either: some of my most cited questions are in Spanish and German. But volume on its own is how you get AI slop. Pages go through checks before they go live: facts against the original source, my voice, no filler. I did the thinking, AI did the doing.
5. Link your own pages together
Internal links are how crawlers find new pages. When I checked 225 of my new pages in Google Search Console in October, 99% of the ones Google had found through a referring link were indexed. Without one, 5% were. A page nobody can find never gets cited.
The surprise: what AI quotes me for most
You'd expect my most cited page to be about marketing. It isn't. It's my guide to games you can play without the internet, cited over 113,000 times in the three months to 18 October. AI doesn't care what your niche is. It cites the clearest answer to the question it's been asked. You don't need to be famous. You need to be the clearest answer.
Try it tonight: the Ask, spy, fill the gaps check
This is the 15-minute AI visibility check I give business owners. You can do it on your phone.
Step 1: Ask
Open ChatGPT, plus Gemini and Perplexity if you can. Ask these two questions and screenshot the answers.
Want AI doing the heavy lifting in your marketing?
I build the systems that handle the boring 80 percent, so you get your week back. Done properly, with the human kept in.
Copy this prompt
Who are the best (what you do) in (your city)?
What do you know about (your business name)?
Step 2: Spy
Look at who AI recommended instead of you, then at the sources it used: the websites, lists, articles and directories behind the answer. That's your hit list. Most people never look, and it's the biggest shortcut there is.
Step 3: Fill the gaps
Write down the ten questions customers ask you every week and answer each one on your website, with the answer in the first sentence. Then go after one place on your hit list each week: a podcast, a guest article, a directory listing. Rerun the check monthly and track your AI visibility as it changes.
Want to see exactly where you stand? Here's what an AI visibility audit covers for a small business, and if you'd rather have it done for you, that's what my AI SEO services are for.
How I measured this
AI citations come from the AI Performance report in Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools, read in my own account on 1, 2, 5 and 15 September and 11, 14, 21 and 25 October 2026. Daily figures are complete days only. The newest two or three days are still filling in, so I leave them out. Google impressions come from Google Search Console for the whole site, read on 26 October 2026 as rolling 30-day totals. These are Microsoft's and Google's own numbers, not estimates.
Frequently asked questions
How many times a day is lilachbullock.com cited by AI?
From 19 to 23 October 2026 it averaged 31,300 AI citations a day in Microsoft's Bing AI Performance report, with a best day of 35,200 on 20 October. In July 2026 it was about 540 a day.
Where do the AI citation numbers come from?
From Microsoft's own AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, which counts how often AI answers cite pages from a website. The Google figures come from Google Search Console.
How long did it take to grow AI citations?
About three months, from July to October 2026, building on work from earlier in the year. The first big jump came on 16 and 17 September and the second from 19 October. Give anything you try at least six months.
Do AI citations send real visitors?
Yes. Google Analytics recorded 4,631 visits from AI assistants in the 30 days to 24 October 2026, and 4,066 of them came from ChatGPT.
Can a small business get cited by AI?
Yes. AI cites the clearest answer, not the biggest brand. Start with the Ask, spy, fill the gaps check: ask AI who it recommends, study the sources it uses, then answer your customers' questions on your own website.
