The case study.
In January 2026 we started building a consumer education platform for a branch of a national retail mortgage lender. Seven months later, AI assistants have cited it more than 20,900 times — 7,761 citations in the last 30 days alone. On ten of its strongest questions, it is the majority source, with citation shares as high as 87.5%. Every number below is measured, sourced, and bot-excluded.
What was built
280 indexed URLs in seven months — 161 pages and 119 articles, published at a sustained pace of more than 9 URLs per week. A multi-state product page system. Interactive calculators. Structured data on every page. Secure application intake wired to the client’s own systems. All of it on infrastructure the owner controls: their domain, their hosting, their analytics.
What it earned
| Measure | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| AI assistant citations (6 months) | 20,996 — growing 6x February to July (Feb 1–Jul 28) | Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance |
| Current citation pace | 7,761 in the last 30 days | Bing Webmaster Tools |
| Peak citation share on single queries | Majority source on 10 questions — up to 87.5% | Bing Webmaster Tools |
| Google impressions (90 days) | 148,000 | Google Search Console |
| Top page, two systems | 36,329 Google impressions + 8,094 AI citations on the same page | GSC + Bing |
| Measured application-intake pace | ~85–90 events per month | GA4 key events |
| Lead-form submissions | 224 in the last 90 days — 8x the January–April pace | leadPops CRM |
Why none of this is bot traffic
We voluntarily excluded 92% of raw site traffic as automated before reporting a single number. Search Console measures activity on Google’s results pages, not our server — bots scrape websites; they do not run Google searches. AI citations are counted inside Microsoft’s systems when assistants answer real questions. Three independent sources, each bot-proof for a different structural reason. That methodology ships with every client engagement.
The signal money cannot buy: Google and Microsoft independently identified the same page as an authority. Search placement can be purchased. Being the source an AI assistant relies on cannot.