ChatGPT gets partner pages as summaries and other pages as snippets

An analyst with the name Konitzny examined how ChatGPT uses web pages. ChatGPT does not fetch partner pages live. It gets a summary that was made before. Other pages come as text snippets. Partner pages are before all web results in the input. In 1,000 cases, the summaries name 70 percent of the entries in positions 1 to 3 of a ranked list.

How it works

The model does not read a partner page. It reads a summary that was made before. The summaries are before all web results in the input. Other web pages come after them as text snippets.

The numbers

Konitzny examined 1,000 cases of ranked lists. The summaries name 70 percent of the entries in positions 1 to 3. They name only 23 percent of the entries in positions 7 to 10.

What is not known

The source does not tell who the partners are. It does not tell how this changes the answers that users see. In 2024, OpenAI told partners that they can get a position near the top. A study from Hamburg found that Springer media shows more in the web interface than through the API. Partners are not always cited correctly.

Insight: Partners get a fixed place in the reply

In 2024, OpenAI promised partners a position near the top. This test shows one method to do it: a summary that was made before, put first in the input. This reads as a fast lane for partners, where OpenAI controls how they are told, and other sites have no such control. Publishers that are not partners face a rival in a good position.