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ZENODO
Dataset . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: ZENODO
ZENODO
Dataset . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Dataset . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
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Replication Data for: The SEO Floor: Measuring Google Rank Distribution of AI-Cited Pages

Authors: Lee, Anthony;

Replication Data for: The SEO Floor: Measuring Google Rank Distribution of AI-Cited Pages

Abstract

This package contains the full data, code, protocol, and pre-registration log for Study A: "The SEO Floor — Measuring Google Rank Distribution of AI-Cited Pages" (Lee, 2026). The companion manuscript is available as a separate Zenodo record (linked under "Related identifiers"). Pre-registration is filed at OSF: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/FMSRD. Study summary. We tested whether Google ranking is a prerequisite for AI citation across four production AI platforms (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Mode) using a comparison-pool design that addresses the Berkson's-paradox concern in prior cited-only research. We collected 100,411 AI citation events across 2,000 user queries spanning 14 verticals, pulled Google's top-100 SERPs for the same queries (~213,000 SERP rows), assembled a comparison pool of 165,661 unique URLs (cited + uncited), crawled them all via Playwright, and fit mixed-effects logistic regressions on the resulting 114,729 (URL, query) observations with query random intercepts. Headline findings. (1) 75.4% of citation events go to pages outside Google's top 30 in aggregate — but per-page, top-3 pages are 7.82× more likely to be cited than rank 11–30 pages, while rank 31–100 pages are 4× less likely (95% CI excludes 1.0 throughout, p<0.0001). The 75% aggregate is a denominator artifact; SEO ranking dominates per-page citation odds with a ~34× range. (2) A pre-registered seven-feature GEO composite adds a small but statistically robust independent effect above SEO rank (Z-sum OR=1.06, PCA-1 OR=1.15 per 1 SD), driven primarily by schema markup (OR=1.31). Six of seven content features show positive associations after rank conditioning. (3) Most "deep-tier" citations are one-shot, sprawling across 43,000 unique URLs and 16,000 domains, with sharp platform divergence on user-generated-content tolerance (Claude 0.6% UGC in deep tier, Perplexity 24%). (4) ~1% of citations go to URLs Google has dropped from its index entirely (CommonCrawl-confirmed on the open web), 84% of which were cited within the corpus's 30-day window — direct evidence of live retrieval beyond Google's index. Contents of this record. code/ — 47 analysis scripts (Python pipeline for data assembly + R scripts for lme4::glmer mixed-effects logistic regression + PowerShell orchestrator). Includes the canonical Princeton + Experiment-M feature extractors imported verbatim per pre-registration §5.2 (princeton_replication/step1_extract_princeton_features.py, experiment_M/extract_features.py, experiment_M/crawl_pages.py).protocol/ — Pre-registered protocol v2.1, complete pre-registration log with nine documented addenda (date-range correction, API-only data exclusions, ecom rescue, Method-B κ scope changes, ChatGPT κ deviation, H3 reframing, Time Epoch drop, Wald CIs, feature-pipeline correction).paper/ — Manuscript draft (markdown source).data/inputs/ — Locked 2,000-query analysis set (sha256 5c22fcc1ea7315feaaf9970ec8ab3e8f22d9dacce938d9807cc220a30685f3c8), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite keyword reformulations, VPS citation snapshot.data/analytic/ — Final tiered citation corpus (100,411 events), Google + Bing SERP pool (213,814 rows), Tier 5 confirmed URLs verified via direct CommonCrawl CDX bypass (810 URLs), Cohen's κ per-event comparison (397 events), Playwright-crawled feature data (115,248 URLs with usable feature data after Princeton processing), the regression-ready H2 dataset (114,729 (URL, query) observations), the final H2 regression results (JSON + markdown), and the archived flawed-features run (preserved per Addendum 9 for transparency).MANIFEST.json — SHA256 hash of every file in the bundle.README.md — Replication guide with phase-by-phase command sequences.Reproducibility. All analysis is fully reproducible from the locked input data via code/scripts/run_h2_all.ps1 (PowerShell orchestrator) running on R 4.5.3 + lme4 + jsonlite + dplyr + broom.mixed + optimx. Total wall time on commodity hardware: ~7 hours. The git tag study-a-v1.0.2 in the bundle's repository identifies the analysis state at this submission. Methodological notes. Pre-registration was filed before Phase 2 data collection. All deviations from the filed protocol are documented in nine addenda on the OSF project wiki (osf.io/w76y8) and reproduced verbatim in protocol/study_a_preregistration_log.md. The most consequential addenda are Addendum 7 (Time Epoch covariate dropped due to 10-week corpus and uncited-observations-have-no-timestamp issue), Addendum 8 (Wald CIs replace pre-registered profile-likelihood CIs at n=114k for tractability with statistically negligible difference), and Addendum 9 (feature post-processor was rewritten to import Princeton/Experiment-M extractors directly after a pre-registration compliance failure was caught in internal review; flawed-vs-corrected coefficient comparison documented).

Keywords

comparison pool, Google AI Mode, pre-registration, mixed effect logistic progression, schema markup, AI Search, generative engine optimization, CommonCrawl, Perplexity, GEO, Claude, SEO, ChatGPT, Berkson's paradox, reproducability package, AI citation

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    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
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    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
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    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
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    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average