More Insight into Optimizing for Perplexity.ai

Will Perplexity.ai become a significant force in search? No one knows. There have certainly been many attempts at reinventing search that haven't panned out. Yet, it remains an interesting new tool in the world of search.

One of my initial efforts at analyzing the sources Perplexity.ai cites in its results has turned up some insights that aren't exactly surprising but nice to have confirmation.

Basic Methodology of Researching Perplexity.ai

Starting with a set of companies, I searched Perplexity.ai with the following: Who is [company]?

These were the companies I started with:

• Amazon
• Nike
• Apple
• Albertsons
• Sands
• AVnet
• PNM Resources
• National Flood Services
• Cloud Peak Energy
• Berkshire Hathaway
• Asahi America
• Arrow Electronics
• Enterprise Products
• Exxon Mobil
• MDU Resources
• POET, LLC
• United Health Group
• Aegon
• Koch Industries
• Walmart
• Rain CII
• Johnson Controls
• Walgreens
• Anthem
• Cardinal Health
• Humana
• FedEx
• Sanderson Farms
• Alabama Power
• Home Depot
• Publix
• BlueCross BlueShield
• Bank of America
• Manpower
• AmerisourceBergen

The Finding of Sources Cited by Perplexity.ai

Elements below partially summarized by chatgpt from a spreadsheet before being edited and included here

Optimize Domain Authority:

Since Perplexity.ai frequently cites domains, improving your website's domain authority could be beneficial. This involves ensuring your website is well-linked from other reputable sites, has high-quality content, and offers a good user experience. SEO best practices such as using relevant keywords, having a fast load time, and ensuring mobile compatibility are important.

Create or Enhance Wikipedia Presence:

With Wikipedia being a frequently cited source, having a Wikipedia page that mentions your website can increase your chances of being cited by Perplexity.ai. Ensure that the Wikipedia content is notable, verifiable, and complies with Wikipedia’s guidelines for creating new entries.

Leverage Encyclopedic Content:

Given that encyclopedias are also cited, creating comprehensive, well-researched, and authoritative content on your site can help. This type of content should be factual, cover topics in-depth, and be regularly updated to maintain accuracy and relevancy. It isn't every company that can have a write-up on Britannica.com. I couldn't even find a good resource to determine how Britannica chooses which companies to include in its articles.

A key takeaway from this finding is leveraging neutral tertiary sources to publish information regarding the company.

Engage with News and Press Releases:

Since news sources and press releases are part of the cited content, regularly publishing press releases or news articles about your business can increase the likelihood of being featured in Perplexity.ai’s search results. Make sure these are distributed through channels that are crawled by search engines.

In some of the cases where press releases were cited, they were published on the website, which is a sign it is about how a press release is written and how the topic of the press release is covered makes it worthy of citation.

Complete Business Profiles on Third Party Sites:

Globaldata.com came up a lot in this initial batch of research. The company profiles on the website are incomplete without buying the specific reports, but this type of third-party collection of company data is a vital component to trust. Which means auditing this data and making sure it is telling an accurate story about the company is also vital.

Robust and Complete About Us Pages:

When the domain was cited, the home page was pretty common, but the About Us pages, the pages that many who create websites roll their eyes at because it is dry and cringe-inducing. Yet, from what Perplexity.ai is showing us in its results, we should be treating the About Us page as the best possible resource about the company. If a neutral Wikipedia editor were to write the most complete entry for the company, what would it include? Certainly keep scandal and negative press off the website, but don't treat the page as a throwaway.

Wrapping it Up

Clearly, none of these findings are overly surprising. All of this is just part of a good branding and marketing plan for any company operating on the web. Items like press releases have fallen out of favor because they were overused and didn't have the impact they used to have.

Now, as a source of recent and relevant information about a company, press releases, done in the traditional sense, might have a resurgence in value. When combined with how news sources are also sometimes used as a citation source for Perplexity.ai, press releases are an important tool in connecting with those news sources.

Also, this is cause to make sure the company's PR efforts are on point. Press contacts are vital. News sources cited weren't always national news, but also small newspapers and media outlets.

Optimizing for search has never been complicated but is always has been work intensive. There isn't a silver bullet, never has been a silver bullet to getting in front of the right traffic.