Benchmarks
Where AI-cited demand actually lands, by category.
Each teardown resolves every outbound link on the most AI-cited publisher pages in a category down to the merchant that captures the cart. We publish benchmarks, never client diagnostics.
Commerce Graph Method v1.2Prestige beauty · Allure
How Allure routes AI citations: MAC vs NARS
78% of AI-cited prestige beauty clicks in the resolved sample land on Amazon, Sephora, Ulta or Nordstrom — not on the brand.
Read the teardown02Consumer tech · Laptops · PCMag
The most AI-cited laptop brands are invisible on the most AI-cited laptop publisher
0.002% of PCMag laptop links go direct to a brand's own site — 35 of 1.85M.
Read the teardown03Running shoes · Runner's World / RunRepeat
Editorial-first vs pure-affiliate: two running publishers, two routing engines
Runner's World keeps 86.6% of its outbound inside the Hearst graph and is only 3.1% commercial.
Read the teardown04Credit cards · Premium travel · NerdWallet
Citi trails on two of three AI trackers — but the gap is content and commerce, not credibility
Citi trails Chase and Capital One on two of three AI trackers — same brand, three different scores.
Read the teardown05Beauty retail · Backlink Intelligence
Sephora vs Ulta: earned authority vs rented authority
Sephora carries 1.76x more referring domains than Ulta.
Read the teardown06Big retail · Backlink Intelligence
Walmart vs Target: opposite digital PR and affiliate playbooks
Two retail giants, two completely different ways of earning links, distributing affiliate revenue, and shaping the SERPs that brands compete on.
Read the teardownThe AI Commerce Capture Brief
One link chain, resolved. Every Friday.
Where AI-driven demand actually landed this week — one publisher, one category, one resolved path.
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