Anyone else seeing AI citations get weird?

[adrian_knox]

Been watching a couple of my pages and the way they’re getting picked up in AI answers feels all over the place lately. Stuff that should be obvious doesn’t show, then some random page with barely any depth gets referenced instead. I’m not even sure if this is an indexing thing, a retrieval thing, or just the usual Google mess bleeding into everything again. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but it’s starting to feel less about “ranking” and more about whether the system even understands what the page is for. Anyone else seeing that kind of nonsense, or is it just my sites acting up again?

[Den]

To be fair, yeah, I’ve seen some weirdness too. Feels less “smart citations” and more random page roulette half the time. Could be indexing, could be retrieval, could just be Google being Google and dragging the mess into AI answers with it. I wouldn’t trust any of it too much yet.

[Den]

Yeah, I’m seeing that too. It’s not even consistently “wrong” in a funny way, it’s just kind of sloppy. Half the time it feels like it’s grabbing whatever page is easiest to digest, not the one that actually matches the intent. Which is… great, I guess. I wouldn’t assume it’s just your sites. The whole thing still feels pretty brittle. That’s been my experience anyway.

[pixelwitch]

Yeah, same here. It feels way more “whatever page Google feels like grabbing today” than any actual understanding. I’ve had pages that should be the obvious citation just get ignored, then some thin junk page gets pulled in instead. So yeah, I’m leaning retrieval/selection being flaky, not just your sites.

[meloncrash]

Yeah, it’s been pretty trashy lately. Feels like the system’s picking citations with a dartboard half the time. I’m not convinced it’s “understanding” anything so much as just latching onto whatever page looks easiest to chew on. Which is… reassuring, in the usual Google way.

[Author]

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