What You’ll Learn:
- What a major new study found about how ChatGPT selects content to cite
- Why the top third of your dental website pages is now prime real estate
- What types of writing and content structure AI tools favor when pulling citations
- How dental practices can adjust their content strategy to show up in AI-generated answers
- What “entity richness” means and why it matters for your practice’s online visibility
Want ChatGPT to Recommend Your Dental Practice? Here’s What the Research Says
A new large-scale study is turning conventional content wisdom on its head, and for dental practices trying to stay visible in an increasingly AI-driven search landscape, the findings are worth paying close attention to.
Growth Advisor Kevin Indig analyzed 3 million ChatGPT responses and isolated 18,012 verified citations to answer a question that is becoming critically important for anyone publishing content online: where exactly does ChatGPT pull its citations from, and what kind of writing gets chosen?
The headline finding is striking. According to the research, 44.2% of all ChatGPT citations come from the first 30% of a page’s content. The middle section of a page accounts for 31.1%, while the final third generates just 24.7% of citations, with a sharp drop near the footer.
For dental practices that have spent years crafting long-form “ultimate guide” style pages that slowly build to their key points, this study suggests a significant rethink may be in order.
The “Ski Ramp” Pattern
Indig described the citation distribution as a “ski ramp” pattern, and the term is apt. Citations drop off steeply as you move down the page. The model appears to establish its understanding of a page early, then interpret the rest of the content through that initial framing.
This is not a quirk of one query type or one content category. According to the research, the pattern held consistently across randomized validation batches, leading Indig to call the results statistically indisputable.
The practical implication is clear. If your most important information is buried three or four paragraphs down, ChatGPT may simply be less likely to surface it.
| Content Position | Share of ChatGPT Citations |
| First third of page (0-30%) | 44.2% |
| Middle of page (30-70%) | 31.1% |
| Final third of page (70-100%) | 24.7% |
This pattern mirrors something long practiced in journalism: the inverted pyramid. Lead with the most important information. Let the supporting detail follow. It turns out that AI, trained heavily on journalistic and academic writing, has internalized that structure and rewards it.
What Gets Cited: Five Traits of AI-Favored Content
The study did not stop at location. Indig’s team also examined the linguistic and structural qualities of the content that actually got pulled into ChatGPT’s answers. Five characteristics consistently separated cited content from content that was passed over.
- Definitive language. Cited passages were nearly twice as likely to use clear, declarative definitions. Phrases structured as “X is…” or “X refers to…” significantly outperformed vague or hedging language. For dental practices, this means pages that clearly define what a procedure involves, what it costs, or what patients can expect are far more likely to be referenced by AI tools than pages that dance around the details.
- Conversational Q&A structure. Cited content was twice as likely to include a question. Notably, 78.4% of citations tied to questions came directly from headings. ChatGPT appears to treat H2 and H3 headers as prompts, then pull from the paragraph that follows as the “answer.” Structuring service pages and blog posts around the actual questions patients ask is no longer just good SEO practice. It is becoming a prerequisite for AI visibility.
- Entity richness. This one is particularly relevant for dental practices. Typical English text contains between 5% and 8% proper nouns, such as brand names, locations, specific tools, and named people. The content that received the most citations averaged a proper noun density of 20.6%. For a dental practice, this means being specific: mention your city, your technology (Invisalign, CBCT imaging, CEREC), your dentist’s name, and relevant professional affiliations. Specificity anchors AI answers and reduces ambiguity.
- Balanced, analyst-style tone. Cited content clustered around a sentiment score that was neither emotionally charged nor robotically dry. The sweet spot resembled what Indig described as “analyst commentary”: factual statements paired with clear interpretation. Overly promotional language and purely clinical language both performed worse. Practices aiming for a warm, informative tone that explains the “why” behind their services are likely already closer to this target.
- Business-grade clarity. Winning content averaged a reading grade level of 16, compared to 19.1 for lower-performing content. Shorter sentences and plain structure consistently outperformed dense academic prose. This is not about dumbing content down. It is about respecting the reader’s time, which, it turns out, is also what AI tools do.
What This Means for Dental Website Content
The shift happening in search right now is not subtle. More and more patients are turning to AI tools to research dental care options before they ever visit a practice website or call an office. When someone asks ChatGPT “what should I know before getting dental implants” or “how do I find a good pediatric dentist,” the practices that get cited in those answers have an enormous visibility advantage.
Appearing in an AI-generated answer is quickly becoming the new version of ranking on the first page of Google. The practices that understand this early will have a meaningful head start.
For dental practices, the actionable takeaway from this research is not complicated, but it does require intentional content decisions.
Service pages should open with a clear, direct statement of what the service is and who it is for. Blog posts should answer their core question within the first two paragraphs, not at the end. FAQs should be written as genuine questions followed by genuine answers, with specific, named details wherever possible. And page headers should function as real questions that a patient would actually type into an AI tool.
This kind of structured, front-loaded content strategy is also what tends to perform well in traditional Google search, particularly for the Google Maps rankings that remain a primary driver of new patient discovery. Strong content and strong local SEO are increasingly pointing in the same direction.
My Social Practice’s dental SEO services and website design are built around exactly this kind of content thinking: pages that clearly communicate who a practice is, what they offer, and why patients should choose them, structured in a way that both search engines and AI tools can quickly understand and reference.
The Clarity Tax
Indig coined a phrase in his report worth remembering: the “clarity tax.” His argument is that content writers who bury their best insights, save definitions for the end, or rely on vague framing are now paying a penalty in AI visibility. The tax is paid in missed citations, missed recommendations, and missed patients.
The structure that works in AI search is not new or exotic. It is the same clear, organized, patient-first writing that has always made for good dental marketing. What has changed is the stakes. With AI tools increasingly acting as the first stop in a patient’s search for care, the clarity tax is getting more expensive by the month.
The practices that start structuring their content for AI citation today are positioning themselves for a form of visibility that is only going to grow in importance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does getting cited by ChatGPT actually bring patients to a dental practice?
Visibility in AI-generated answers builds brand awareness and trust at the very beginning of a patient’s research process. While AI citations do not always generate a direct click, separate research has shown that patients who discover a practice through an AI tool and then visit the website directly tend to convert at higher rates than other traffic sources. Being cited by ChatGPT positions a practice as a credible, authoritative source before a patient ever makes contact.
What type of dental content is most likely to be cited by AI tools?
Content that performs best in AI citation tends to share several traits: it opens with a clear answer or definition, it uses specific language including named services, technologies, locations, and providers, it is structured with headers framed as questions, and it maintains a readable, conversational tone without being overly promotional. FAQ sections and service pages written in plain language tend to perform particularly well.
Should dental practices change how they write blog posts to appear in AI answers?
Yes, with some adjustments. Rather than building to a conclusion, blog posts should lead with the key insight and then support it with detail. Headers should reflect the actual questions patients ask AI tools. Specific details like procedure names, technology, locations, and provider credentials should appear throughout the content, not just at the bottom. This structure benefits both AI visibility and traditional Google search performance.
How is AI search visibility different from traditional dental SEO?
Traditional dental SEO focuses heavily on Google rankings, particularly in Google Maps, and on driving clicks to a website. AI search visibility is about being referenced or recommended inside an AI-generated answer, often before a patient ever reaches a search results page. The two are increasingly complementary: practices with strong, well-structured content and solid local SEO signals tend to perform well in both environments. The content characteristics that earn AI citations, such as clarity, specificity, and a question-and-answer structure, also align closely with what Google rewards in local search.
About the Author: Megan Nielsen is an SEO strategist and the Grand Overlord of copywriting at My Social Practice. My Social Practice is a dental marketing company that offers a full suite of dental marketing services to thousands of dental practices throughout the United States and Canada.
