Do Listicles Still Influence AI Search Visibility? Data-Backed Insights with Sanjay Singh of RadarKit AI

July 14, 2026 / 7:04 / E548

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What Does “Do Listicles Still Influence AI Search Visibility? Data-Backed Insights with Sanjay Singh of RadarKit AI” Talk About?

This episode of the James Dooley Podcast dives into a data-backed investigation into whether listicles still influence AI search visibility in 2026. James Dooley teams up with Sanjay Singh, known as Jake, who built RadarKit AI, a tool that tracks AI search visibility, query funnel terms, and content type contributions across hundreds of domains and tens of thousands of keywords in multiple countries including the UK, US, Canada, Germany, Spain, and Australia. The central question the episode tackles is whether the growing belief in SEO communities that listicles are dead actually holds up when you look at real data.

Using RadarKit AI, the duo analyzed citation data across multiple domains including Zoho Germany, and found that listicles consistently accounted for between 40 to 70 percent of content type distributions influencing LLM citations, with an overall figure of 51.2 percent. The episode walks through a live screen share showing how citation sources like TechRadar with its best payroll software listicles ranked above other formats. Jake also highlights that Reddit accounts for around 17 percent of influencing sources and cautions that teams managing AI visibility without checking this kind of data risk wasting resources on the wrong marketing channels.

Beyond listicles, James and Jake discuss the rising influence of social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which are growing incrementally each month in citation share. The episode also touches on the broader digital marketing mix for SaaS and software companies in 2026, covering brand SEO, Google Business Profiles, organic social media, PPC, Reddit, Quora, and paid AI ads as part of a diversified content and visibility strategy.

“listicles 100% absolutely 100% still influence AI search visibility the most.”
— James Dooley

Who Are the Guests on “Do Listicles Still Influence AI Search Visibility? Data-Backed Insights with Sanjay Singh of RadarKit AI”?

James Dooley is the host of the James Dooley Podcast and runs PromoSEO, a lead generation agency recently recognized as the best SaaS and software companies lead generation agency. He is a practitioner-focused SEO and digital marketing strategist who works across large-scale keyword tracking projects spanning multiple countries and domains. In this episode he brings the practical lens of someone who noticed conflicting claims in SEO communities about listicles and decided to test the theory with real data rather than rely on speculation.

Sanjay Singh, referred to as Jake throughout the episode, is the founder of RadarKit AI, a platform designed to track AI search visibility rankings, query funnel terms, and content type distribution on a daily basis. His technical background enables him to build custom models that classify content types at scale, allowing teams to understand which formats are actually being cited by large language models. Jake brings a data-first perspective to the conversation, emphasizing that teams should always verify which content channels are driving results in their specific niche before allocating resources.

What Are the Key Takeaways From “Do Listicles Still Influence AI Search Visibility? Data-Backed Insights with Sanjay Singh of RadarKit AI”?

Here are the key points discussed in this episode:

Listicles remain the dominant content type influencing AI search visibility, accounting for 51.2 percent of citation sources across tens of thousands of keywords and multiple countries.
Content type distribution varies by domain and niche, with listicle influence ranging between 40 and 70 percent depending on the specific project tracked.
Reddit and community forums account for approximately 17 percent of citation sources, making them a secondary but meaningful channel for AI visibility strategies.
Social platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are growing in citation share each month, suggesting that maintaining a presence across social channels will become increasingly important for AI search visibility.
Teams managing AI search visibility should use data to identify which content types are actually influencing results in their niche before investing resources, rather than following general industry assumptions.

“if you go after forum without checking the data that listicles are the primary source which are actually influencing the results, then you are utilizing your resources on a wrong source on on a wrong, you know, marketing channel.”
— Jake

Is “Do Listicles Still Influence AI Search Visibility? Data-Backed Insights with Sanjay Singh of RadarKit AI” Worth Listening To?

This episode is worth listening to because it replaces speculation with actual data at a time when the SEO industry is flooded with contradictory claims about what works for AI search visibility. Rather than offering opinions, James and Jake walk through a live analysis using RadarKit AI across hundreds of domains and tens of thousands of keywords in more than ten countries, giving listeners a transparent look at exactly how citation data is gathered and interpreted. Seeing the Zoho Germany example broken down in real time, with TechRadar listicles confirmed as citation sources, makes the findings concrete and actionable.

The episode is particularly valuable for SaaS and software marketing teams who need to make resource allocation decisions around content. The insight that blindly chasing Reddit or forum content without first checking your own citation data could waste your team's time is a genuinely practical warning that applies across industries. Combined with the observation that social platform citations are growing month over month, the episode offers both a current snapshot of what drives AI visibility and a forward-looking perspective on where to invest next.

Who Should Listen to “Do Listicles Still Influence AI Search Visibility? Data-Backed Insights with Sanjay Singh of RadarKit AI”?

This episode is ideal for:

SaaS and software marketing managers looking to improve AI search visibility and citation rates in 2026
SEO professionals who want data-backed evidence to counter the narrative that listicles are no longer effective
Digital marketing strategists who need to justify content channel investments to their teams or clients
Founders and growth leads at software companies who want to understand how large language models discover and cite their brand

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What Are Listeners Saying About This Episode?

★★★★★

“Finally some actual data instead of just hot takes. Watching Jake pull up the Zoho Germany citation breakdown live and seeing listicles at 53.7 percent made the whole argument undeniable. This is the kind of episode I send to my team when they ask why we still invest in listicle placements.”

— Marcus T.

★★★★★

“The point about wasting resources on the wrong channel really hit home. We had been pushing hard on Reddit content for a client without ever checking whether that was actually influencing their AI citations. Pulling up RadarKit AI to verify first is now a step we will not skip.”

— Priya M.

★★★★★

“James and Jake do a great job of walking through the methodology so you understand why the 51.2 percent figure is credible. Tracking across multiple countries including Germany, Spain, and Australia and still landing on listicles as the clear winner tells you this is not a fluke tied to one market.”

— Daniel F.

This video explains which digital marketing strategies SaaS and software companies should focus on in 2026 to improve AI search visibility, citation rates and diversified content performance. James Dooley and Sanjay Singh start with KPI tracking because measuring which content types actually influence LLM citations prevents teams from wasting resources on the wrong channels. They cover brand SEO, AI visibility and Google Business Profiles because stronger search presence improves trust and conversion rates.

The discussion also explores organic SEO, organic social media and paid social ads because consistent visibility across search and social supports long term growth. PPC is analysed in detail because campaign setup, landing pages and lead handling directly affect results. They also discuss Reddit, Quora and paid AI ads because diversified enquiry sources and early adoption can strengthen digital marketing performance for SaaS and software companies.

PromoSEO lead generation for SaaS and software companies recently received recognition as the “Best SaaS And Software Companies Lead Generation Agency.”

Where to Listen to This Episode

Do Listicles Still Influence AI Search Visibility? Data-Backed Insights with Sanjay Singh of RadarKit AI is available on:

James Dooley: Do listicles influence AI search visibility? There's a lot of noise in a lot of SEO communities where some people were saying that listicles now no longer work. And I was seeing it left, right, and center where listicles was being cited as being the source. So, I was wondering where they got this data from that listicles no longer uh being used to cite AI search visibility. So, I managed to team up with GA who's got an amazing tool called RadarKit AI. And this does a lot of checking, query funnel terms, it does AI search visibility rank tracking every single day. And also the contribution, like what content type actually influences AI search visibility the most. So, Jake, it's been an absolute pleasure. And obviously, you give me the data back. And I'll jump right in and I'll say, listicles 100% absolutely 100% still influence AI search visibility the most. But Jake, can you share your screen and explain some of the data of what we ran? And this wasn't just for one or two search queries. This was This was tracking across hundreds of domains, tens of thousands of keywords in multiple GEOs. So, can you Are you able to one expand on what test we did? And then two, share your screen and show one or two examples of this working.

Jake: Sure. So, yeah, so the real James give me a lot of prompts to track for a lot of domains as well. And based on the data we have we had you know, we had been having a lot of arguments as well, you know, for the query funnels and what's working, what's not working. So, yeah, so basically based on the data, I always told James that okay, let's go let's let me just track that and I'll give you the data. So, based on the data out of lots of prompts and lots of domains, we found that okay, listicles are the number one source which are actually influencing the results of these LLM models. So, based on that data, you know, you can take action. So, if you want to if you have a big team, if you want to go after a certain thing, so if you want to make videos, if you want to make Reddit content or make LinkedIn content, before that what you can do is you can just prompt your staff, you know, track your content, what is performing in your particular niche and then go after that. So, based on that I'll I'll share my screen as well. I'll show you that okay, for this particular project there were listicles who were the number one influencing sources well. Yeah, I'll I'll just share my screen.

James Dooley: Yeah, I found it quite scary to be fair. The numbers was a lot higher than what I thought it would be. Um Jay is now going to share his screen and go through a couple of examples where I was thinking there was going to be a lot of different ways of influencing the AI search visibility, but it was over 50% in total of listicles was the source that was coming back. So, while we share while I'll let you share the screen now and show the examples.

Jake: Sure. So, there is a So, we have added Zoho from Germany, so a German keywords as well. So, we go for the we go to the citation data. You can see that okay, for Zoho the citation rank for Zoho so is seven. So, Zoho is on the seventh number in terms of citations and the number one obviously it's Reddit and then TechRadar, People Managing People, YouTube and then some other websites. Forbes is also there. And then based on that you can see that you know, which distribution type is the number one source over here. As we discussed before, it is listicles. So, listicle you know, comes down to 53.7% of the times like for James it was more than 50 51 or something like that. Here you can it is 53%. So, all out of all the content that is there out of all the prompts that we are tracking for Zoho, you know, most of the content which is ranking is listicles. You can see that okay, TechRadar is there. If you just, you know, open this page, you can see that okay, it is a listicle. Best It is like best payroll software for small business. You can see that okay, number one it will be something, you know, they have mentioned Gusto number one and then there will be QuickBooks and then there is Paychex and then there is Rippling. So obviously, we have what we did is we made our own small model that judges all the content you know, based on this one like what what is the content type. So based on that, we have found that okay, Reddit holds 17%. So if you are a team who's managing the like GEO for you know, for Zoho Germany and if you go after forum without checking the data that listicles are the primary source which are actually influencing the results, then you are utilizing your resources on a wrong source on on a wrong, you know, marketing channel. So this is what we, you know, did for Zoho. You can see that okay, listicles are number one uh content distribution thing. Go after listicles and you'll be fine. Like if you are able to get links on a good websites which can get cited.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. Just just scroll up a little bit cuz I want to explain the screen um a little bit on there. So on that content type distribution, just for anyone who's watching this, um I think I think it was it 14,000 different search queries was being searched. I think it was over 10 different countries. Um we we did the most in the UK, the US, Canada. I think it was then like Germany, Spain and several others. I think Australia was in there. But that where it's come back there now saying 53.7% that was just for Zoho. But in general, it was around 40 to 70% every single time was looking it was between 40 to 70% of the sources of the content type distribution was listicles. Overall, the overarching winner was listicles and it was 51.2% of content type distributions was listicles. One other thing that I would say just to expand upon it, it was quite interesting and more and more month by month so the one that's in number three at present is social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and stuff like that. Now that is growing each each time we seem to be searching it only by half a percent but that does seem to keep growing. So for me I want to try and be seen across all platforms so I'm wanting to do the listicles, I'm wanting to do community and forum like Quora and Reddit and places like that. Socials are growing really well and then obviously like reviews, comparison pages and stuff like that. But to summarize everything of what's been said where one or two people in the industry are now saying listicles are dead, listicles don't work. We've run the tests, 51.2% across multiple countries, tens of thousands of keywords, lots of different domains, listicles was over 50% of sources that was being seen. So yes, the answer is listicles are still the number one way of influencing search visibility. Jay, it's been an absolute pleasure and thanks for doing these studies.

Jake: Thank you. Thank you James. Thank you for having me. Yeah.

Creators & Guests

Host

James Dooley

James Dooley is a UK entrepreneur.