In her study published on June 17, 2026, Lily Ray examined 100 B2B “best [category] software” queries across Google’s AI Overviews at three separate dates (April 15, May 15, June 8). The finding is striking: when a brand publishes its own “best” listicle and ranks itself number one, Google cites that article as a source in its answer but leaves the brand out of the recommendation 69% of the time.
In her study published on June 17, 2026, Lily Ray examined 100 B2B “best [category] software” queries across Google’s
AI Overviews at three separate dates (April 15, May 15, June 8). The finding is striking: when a brand publishes its own “best” listicle and ranks itself number one, Google cites that article as a source in its answer but leaves the brand out of the recommendation 69% of the time.
Worse still: the competitors you named in that listicle get recommended. So your own content becomes a vote for your rival. The critical distinction here:
being cited (citation) and being recommended (recommendation) are two different things, and the one that drives the business outcome is the recommendation.
What happened, exactly?
Lily Ray used Ahrefs Brand Radar data to pull each query’s AI answer and the sources it cited, then split every answer into two separate metrics. First,
citation: does the brand’s own “best” article appear among the answer’s sources? Second,
recommendation: is the brand actually one of the options recommended inside the answer?
The result is clear. Across the 80 queries that surfaced an AI Overview, when a brand’s own self-promotional listicle got cited as a source, that brand was left out of the recommendation 69% of the time. Across the 100 queries tracked over three months, 74 returned an answer that cited a self-promoter’s listicle but left that brand out of the recommendation. The ones recommended were always the same type: the established, authoritative category leaders that plenty of other independent pages already recommend.
Lily Ray gives an example: on the query “best LMS for selling courses,” Oasis LMS is cited repeatedly, both in the body and in the sidebar, but isn’t recommended. Even though it crowns itself “number one” in its own article. Meanwhile the competitors it named in that article, Kajabi, Thinkific, LearnWorlds, Teachable, all make it into the recommendation.
What it means for SEO/GEO
This study takes the “being visible isn’t enough” theme we’ve been discussing in recent weeks to its sharpest point. Google appears to have decoupled what it cites from who it recommends. The citation decision is fed by content; the recommendation decision is fed by how much the rest of the web talks about you, links to you, that is, by real authority signals.
Lily Ray shows this with numbers. The recommended brands have far more referring domains and far more AI Overview and ChatGPT mentions than their cited-but-not-recommended counterparts. So calling yourself “the best” changes nothing; others calling you “the best” is what changes it.
There’s also a new move from Google: it now adds a disclaimer to some “best” queries. When Lily Ray asked for “the best SEO experts,” AI Overviews warned that the field is “saturated with self-proclaimed experts.” So Google is aware of self-promotion and is warning users against it.
My take
This study both delighted me and confirmed, with a bitter clarity, something I’ve been saying for years. I’ve always said AI visibility isn’t bought from a tool or a trick, it’s earned. The shortcut of “I’ll rank myself number one in my own listicle and be done with it” worked in the short term because it exploited a gap. Now that gap is closing.
My field observation backs this up too. The most common mistake I’ve seen in content audits these past months is brands stuffing their own pages with self-praising, unsubstantiated superiority claims. This kind of content erodes credibility even for a human reader, remember Burson’s “facts convince, adjectives don’t” finding from last week. Now Lily Ray shows that the same holds for AI, and even harder: that unsubstantiated “we’re the best” content wins the game for your competitor, not you.
My real takeaway is this: we need to stop treating the citation count as a success metric. There are plenty of people celebrating “ChatGPT cited me.” Lily Ray is saying a citation on its own means nothing, and can even mislead you. What matters is being recommended. And recommendation comes not from praising yourself, but from the web praising you.
Practical step
Do two things this week. First, if you have self-promotional listicles where you crown yourself “number one,” review them. Unless you’re an established, authoritative brand, those pages are probably hurting you by carrying your competitors into the recommendation. Second, shift your energy from praising yourself to getting others to praise you: independent reviews, real customer cases, third-party mentions. That’s where AI’s recommendation decision is shaped.
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