A 1-site case study, July to October 2026, by Michael Putnam, Putnam Realty Group. Every number is dated, the method is below, and so are the limits.
Florida Home Value AI, the home value website I build and maintain from Nokomis, Florida, was cited 205 times by Microsoft Copilot and its partners between 14 July and 24 October 2026. Copilot's citations per day grew from 0.8 in July (from the 14th) to 3.2 in October. A single AI answer can cite more than 1 of the site's pages, so 205 citations doesn't mean 205 answers. Over a similar stretch on Google, the site's average position was 30.2, and Google's own AI features showed its pages 702 times between 31 May and 24 October.
4 findings:
Florida Home Value AI (floridahomevalueai.com) is built and maintained by me, Michael Putnam, a licensed real estate agent with Putnam Realty Group in Nokomis, Florida. It publishes recorded sale figures from Sarasota County records, home value estimates (estimates, not appraisals), guides to local questions like homestead and flood zones, and a separate site for each of several communities in Venice, Nokomis and Sarasota.
It shows up for some of the same local searches as the national home sites.
The numbers come from 5 readings, the first 4 read on 26 October 2026:
| Source | What it reports | Dates covered |
|---|---|---|
| Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance (beta) | Times Microsoft Copilot and its partners cited a page | 14 Jul to 24 Oct 2026 |
| Google Search Console, Performance (Web) | Clicks, impressions, average position, searches | 25 Jul to 24 Oct 2026 |
| Google Search Console, Generative AI features (beta) | Times the site's pages were shown in Google's AI features | 31 May to 24 Oct 2026 |
| ChatGPT, signed out | 1 question, asked once that day, answer saved | 26 Oct 2026 |
| ChatGPT, earlier test | The same kind of question for 4 communities, from my notes at the time (whether I was signed in wasn't recorded) | 19 Aug 2026 |
No paid ads, no boosted posts and no bought links. Besides search and AI answers, the only promotion was free posts in Facebook groups and letters mailed to homeowners.
Copilot citations per day grew from 0.8 to 3.2, July to October 2026
Source: Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance (beta), Microsoft Copilot and partners, 14 Jul to 24 Oct 2026, read 26 Oct 2026.
July and October are partial months, so the chart shows citations per day. The rise wasn't steady. September started slower than August, with 6 citations in its first 10 days, then had 66 in its last 20.
The pages Copilot cited most:
| Page | Citations | What it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Palmer Ranch guide | 48 | What Palmer Ranch is, what homes cost, its communities, schools and the Legacy Trail |
| Flat fee MLS | 31 | What a flat fee listing is and what each service level costs |
| Homestead exemption | 31 | How Florida homestead works and how to file |
| Talon Preserve community site | 16 | What homes in Talon Preserve sold for, by home type |
| Gated communities | 14 | HOA vs CDD fees, and what gated communities in Sarasota County cost |
| IslandWalk community site | 12 | What homes in IslandWalk sold for, by home type |
13 more pages were cited 1 to 9 times each, for 19 pages in all.
From 25 July to 24 October, Google showed the site's pages about 5,260 times and sent 72 clicks. Its average position was 30.2. Broad searches showed the site but sent nobody, like "venice median home price" (98 impressions, 0 clicks).
| Google Search Console, 25 Jul to 24 Oct 2026 | Figure |
|---|---|
| Clicks | 72 |
| Impressions | about 5,260 |
| Click rate | 1.4% |
| Average position | 30.2 |
| Searches Google listed | 473 |
Google hides the search behind most clicks when too few people typed it. Only 2 of the 72 clicks can be tied to a search.
Some of the 473 "searches" Google listed aren't searches at all: "yes", "both", "howd you know", "where did you get that info?", "how about the prestige". A news report quotes Google's John Mueller saying the general Search Console report includes AI Overviews and AI Mode, and says Google's documentation counts a follow-up question in AI Mode as a new search (Relevant Audience, 6 Aug 2026). That may mean people asked Google's AI follow-up questions while one of these pages was in its answer. It also means some of Google's 72 clicks and about 5,260 impressions may have come through Google's own AI answers. Search Console doesn't separate them here, so that can't be checked.
On 26 October 2026, signed out of ChatGPT, I asked: "What local website shows home values in Talon Preserve, Nokomis FL?"
It listed the site's Talon Preserve page first and Realtor.com's property records second. It ended: "Start with the first website. It is specifically designed for Talon Preserve..."
On 19 August 2026, a similar question ("What local website shows home values in [community]?") was asked for 4 communities. It listed the site first for Talon Preserve, IslandWalk and Gran Paradiso, and didn't name it for Palmero. Those August results come from my notes at the time.
It quoted medians the page published in August, from sales through 3 August 2026. By 26 October the page covered sales through 2 October 2026 and no longer showed medians, so ChatGPT appears to have used an older copy.
Google's Search Console has a separate report, Generative AI features (beta). It counts how often the site's pages were shown in Google's AI features. From 31 May to 24 October 2026 it counted 702 impressions across 32 pages.
One page, the flood zones guide, had 455 of them. Copilot cited that same page only twice. The 2 AIs leaned on different pages:
| Page | Google AI features impressions (31 May to 24 Oct) | Copilot citations (14 Jul to 24 Oct) |
|---|---|---|
| Flood zones guide | 455 | 2 |
| Gated communities | 37 | 14 |
| Talon Preserve community site | 32 | 16 |
| New construction vs resale | 25 | 6 |
| Palmer Ranch guide | 10 | 48 |
| Homestead exemption | 7 | 31 |
| Flat fee MLS | not listed | 31 |
An impression and a citation aren't the same measure, and the date ranges differ, so compare the order of pages, not the size of the numbers. Google's report lists impressions by page, and those page counts add up to a little more than the 702 total.
Most of the cited pages share 3 traits. The pages Copilot didn't cite weren't compared against them, so these traits are a pattern worth testing, and they don't prove what caused the citations.
Neither calculator page was among the cited pages Bing listed. In Google's AI features, the property tax calculator page was shown 4 times out of 702, and the payment calculator page wasn't listed. A likely reason, which I haven't tested: an AI answer can quote a sentence, but it can't run a calculator for the person asking.
This covers 1 site, so it shows what happened here and doesn't prove a rule. It partly matches a 2024 study from Princeton and IIT Delhi, which found its methods raised a page's visibility in AI answers by up to 40%, and that adding statistics, quotations and cited sources helped (GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, KDD 2024). That study tested its own set of questions and Perplexity, and didn't test Copilot or ChatGPT.
You're welcome to republish or quote this study for free. Please credit it as:
and keep that link and the Putnam Realty Group name in the piece. The home value website it's about is https://floridahomevalueai.com.
Questions about the data: Michael Putnam, Putnam Realty Group, 941-662-9941, [email protected].
Call or text 941-662-9941 · [email protected]