ChatGPT uses web search in 80%+ of the prompts

Conventional wisdom says ChatGPT includes web search results in only 20-40% of queries. After testing 5,200 queries across 52 countries, we found that conventional wisdom is wrong.

ChatGPT uses grounding (linking to sources and citations via web search) in 80.5% of successful responses when queried from independent, non-rate-limited sessions.

This finding has massive implications for businesses investing in AI SEO and Generative Engine Optimization. If you want your website to appear in ChatGPT responses, you need to understand how organic web search behavior actually works.

Table of contents

• The grounding problem
• Why existing studies are flawed
• Our independent testing methodology
• Overall results: The 80.5% finding
• Results by country
• What this means for your SEO strategy

The grounding problem

Grounding is the mechanism ChatGPT uses to verify information. When you enable web search in a conversation, ChatGPT performs searches and includes citations to sources it used to generate its response.

This is critically important for businesses:

• Traffic driver: Citations generate clicks to cited websites
• Authority signal: Being cited establishes domain authority
• Competitive intelligence: Understanding who gets cited reveals competitive positioning
• SEO strategy: If you’re not being cited, you’re invisible in AI search

However, there’s been significant confusion about how frequently ChatGPT actually uses web search in its organic behavior.

The common belief: Many SEO professionals and marketers report seeing web search results in only 20-40% of responses, leading to the assumption that ChatGPT doesn’t force grounding when not knowing the answer.

The reality: Our data suggests these observations are biased by rate-limiting, not by ChatGPT’s natural, organic behavior. When ChatGPT is allowed to operate without restrictions, it consistently uses web search and grounding at much higher rates.

Why existing studies are flawed

Most studies of ChatGPT’s web search behavior suffer from critical flaws that systematically underestimate its frequency.

Here’s what goes wrong:

1. Sequential testing: Researchers fire 100 prompts from a single account, triggering pattern detection
2. Low-quality proxies: Cheap, datacenter IPs that OpenAI easily flags as non-organic
3. Altered browsers: Automated browsers with detectable fingerprints trigger anti-bot systems
4. OpenAI detects these patterns and disables web search entirely
5. Researchers conclude “ChatGPT rarely uses web search”

The reality: Studies dramatically underestimate web search frequency because they’re measuring rate-limited behavior, not natural, organic behavior.

Our independent testing methodology

To eliminate rate-limiting bias, we designed infrastructure that ensures every query comes from a completely independent session using high-quality proxies and organic browser fingerprints.

Each query runs in a fresh browser instance with:

• No shared state (no cookies, cache, or authentication carried between requests)
• Legitimate residential IPs in the target country
• Natural browser fingerprints that evade detection
• Varied prompts and realistic timing

This mirrors how real users interact with ChatGPT: individual queries from independent contexts with legitimate infrastructure.

Test scope

Total queries: 5,200 (100 prompts × 52 countries)

Countries tested (52):

United Arab Emirates (AE)
Argentina (AR)
Austria (AT)
Australia (AU)
Azerbaijan (AZ)
Bangladesh (BD)
Belgium (BE)
Brazil (BR)
Canada (CA)
Czech Republic (CZ)
Germany (DE)
Denmark (DK)
Egypt (EG)
Spain (ES)
Finland (FI)
France (FR)
United Kingdom (GB)
Greece (GR)
Croatia (HR)
Hungary (HU)
Indonesia (ID)
Ireland (IE)
Israel (IL)
India (IN)
Italy (IT)
Japan (JP)
South Korea (KR)
Kazakhstan (KZ)
Morocco (MA)
Mexico (MX)
Malaysia (MY)
Nigeria (NG)
Netherlands (NL)
Norway (NO)
New Zealand (NZ)
Peru (PE)
Philippines (PH)
Pakistan (PK)
Poland (PL)
Portugal (PT)
Romania (RO)
Serbia (RS)
Saudi Arabia (SA)
Sweden (SE)
Singapore (SG)
Slovenia (SI)
Slovakia (SK)
Thailand (TH)
Turkey (TR)
Taiwan (TW)
Ukraine (UA)
United States (US)

Prompt categories (100 total):

• E-commerce: Product comparisons, shopping recommendations, best-in-class queries
• Health & Wellness: Nutritional information, diet compatibility, wellness products
• Technology: Software comparisons, AI platforms, optimization tools
• Legal & Compliance: GDPR requirements, certification standards, data privacy
• Consumer Services: Travel preparation, insurance decisions, financial services
• Social Media Management: Account cleanup tools, automation features, compliance

Example prompts:

• What is the best laundry detergent for hard water?
• Is getting TSA PreCheck worth it?
• Is cream of wheat keto friendly?
• ¿El seguro de auto cubre pérdida total? (Does car insurance cover total loss?)
• Best AI platforms for visibility
• Most popular answer engine optimization tools
• Which twitter cleanup tool supports GDPR requests?
• For GDPR compliance, I need to purge DMs and unfollow everyone older than 30 days

Overall results: The 80.5% finding

Key finding: ChatGPT used grounding via web search in 80.5% of all responses across 52 countries and 100 diverse prompts when operating in its natural, unrestricted state.

Overall statistics:

Metric	Count	Percentage
Total queries	5,200	100%
Successful responses	5,042	97%
Responses with web search	4,191	80.5%
Responses without web search	1,009	19.5%

Average sources per response (when sources present): 31 citations

This is dramatically higher than the 20-40% commonly reported in the SEO community.

Sources count distribution

When ChatGPT does include sources, it doesn’t just add a token citation — it typically includes multiple:

• Most common: 15-25 sources per response
• High-end responses: 40-80 sources for complex queries
• Sparse responses: 9-14 sources for straightforward questions

This suggests ChatGPT’s default behavior is to over-cite rather than under-cite, providing extensive attribution for its answers.

Implications for SEO

If 80.5% of responses include web search citations, the opportunity for websites to be featured in ChatGPT responses is massive.

The math:

• If your category gets 1 million searches daily via ChatGPT
• 805,000 of those responses will include sources and web search results
• If you’re one of 10 sources cited, that’s ~80,500 potential clicks
• At a 5% click-through rate, that’s 4,025 visitors per day

This is why GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is becoming as important as traditional SEO.

Results by country

Grounding rates vary significantly by country, ranging from 46% to 92%.

Top performing countries

Ukraine leads at 92%—nearly all responses included sources:

Country	Grounding Rate
Ukraine	92%
United Arab Emirates	91%
Turkey	91%
Austria	90%
Italy	90%
Netherlands	90%
Poland	90%
Sweden	90%

High performers (85-89%):

• Australia, Great Britain, Indonesia, Mexico, Taiwan: 89%
• Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Croatia: 88%
• Egypt, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore: 87-88%

United States performance

The United States showed a 64% web search and grounding rate — below the global average but still significantly higher than commonly reported.

Country	Grounding Rate
United States	64%

This lower rate may reflect AI maturity in the country: higher ChatGPT adoption may lead to cached results/knowledge.

Lower performing countries

Canada, India, and Serbia showed reduced web search rates:

Country	Grounding Rate
Serbia	46%
India	50%
Canada	53%

Geographic patterns

Europe generally shows high grounding rates (85-90% across most countries), Asia-Pacific shows wide variation (70-89%), the US is below average at 64%, while Latin America and the Middle East perform well (70-91%).

What this means for your SEO strategy

The 80.5% web search and grounding rate changes how businesses should approach AI search optimization.

1. Priority shift: Web search and grounding are the norm, not the exception

Old thinking: “ChatGPT rarely uses web search, so being cited is lucky”

New reality: “4 out of 5 responses include web search citations, so being cited is expected”

If 80.5% of ChatGPT responses include sources via web search, not being cited is the exception. This reflects ChatGPT’s organic behavior when not constrained by rate-limiting. This means:

• Your competitors are likely being cited regularly
• Your absence from citations is noticeable
• Prioritizing GEO strategies is essential

2. Geographic targeting matters

If you’re a US-based business, you face a double challenge:

• Lower overall grounding rate (64% vs. 80.5% global)
• More competitive citation landscape

Strategic implications:

• International businesses: Optimize for high-grounding countries first (Europe, Middle East)
• US businesses: Need stronger SEO for AI to compete for limited citations
• Global strategy: Target queries that perform well across multiple countries

3. Content optimization for citations

To be one of the ~31 sources ChatGPT typically includes:

Structure content for extraction:

• Use schema markup to help ChatGPT understand your content
• Create comprehensive guides that answer questions completely
• Include clear headings, lists, and structured data
• Publish original research and data

Build authority signals:

• Get cited by authoritative sources in your niche
• Build quality backlinks from high-domain-authority sites
• Create shareable research and infographics
• Develop llms.txt files for AI crawler optimization

4. Monitoring and iteration

Use ChatGPT visibility tracking to:

• Track when your brand is cited in responses
• Monitor competitor citation rates
• Identify queries where you should be cited but aren’t
• Measure the impact of optimization efforts

5. The new SEO hierarchy

Traditional SEO: Rank #1 in Google = Win

AI SEO: Be cited in ChatGPT responses = Win

The convergence: You need both

• Traditional rankings still matter (ChatGPT cites high-ranking pages)
• But ranking isn’t enough—you need to be structured for AI extraction
• Schema markup and GEO are now as important as keywords and backlinks

Conclusion

Our study of 5,200 queries across 52 countries reveals a critical truth: ChatGPT uses web search far more frequently than the commonly believed 20-40%.

The 80.5% global grounding rate demonstrates that citations are a core feature of ChatGPT’s organic behavior—not an occasional add-on. When allowed to operate without rate-limiting restrictions, ChatGPT consistently performs web search and includes sources in 4 out of 5 responses.

The window of opportunity is open now. As more businesses discover the importance of ChatGPT citations, competition for inclusion will intensify. Start by understanding your current ChatGPT visibility, optimize your content for AI crawling, and track your progress over time.

The future of search is here. Make sure ChatGPT knows you exist.

This study was conducted using cloro’s high-quality infrastructure and independent session testing to eliminate rate-limiting bias. For access to our ChatGPT endpoint, visit our page.