Mostly websites, plus a few big directories and a lot of "best of" lists. Of the 4,634 sources Claude cited with live search, 79.4% were businesses' own sites and other sites outside the big directories, 9.5% were directories and listings, 5.8% Wikipedia and 2.9% review platforms. 38% had a "best", "top" or "أفضل" style title. UAE government sites were nearly absent: 5 citations out of 4,634.
The mix changes a lot by industry and language. TripAdvisor carries restaurants, Practo and Zavis carry English dental answers, and property portals' area guides turn up for schools, gyms and cafes. Arabic answers draw on a different set of sites, including property companies' Arabic blogs, businesses' own Arabic pages and, in 46 of 250 answers, at least one Saudi page.
How we collected the sources
On 21 October 2026 we sent 500 real UAE buyer questions (10 industries, 25 in English and 25 in Arabic each) to Claude with Anthropic's live web search tool, once each, word for word. We saved every link the tool listed: 4,634 in total, 9.3 per answer. The full method is in the main study; this page covers the links.
We sorted each link by its web address into fixed groups: directories and listings (Bayut, Property Finder, Dubizzle, Practo, Fresha, Zomato, Talabat, TimeOut and similar), review platforms (TripAdvisor, Yelp, Trustpilot), Wikipedia, news sites, social media and forums, and government sites. Everything else went into one big group: businesses' own sites, blogs, and smaller directories we did not list by name (HeliumDoc, Zavis and Tebcan, for example, ended up there). So read the 79.4% as "everything else", led by business websites.
What kind of sites does AI cite?
| Type of site | All 4,634 citations | English answers (2,340) | Arabic answers (2,294) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Businesses' own sites and other sites | 79.4% | 79.1% | 79.6% |
| Directories and listings | 9.5% | 11.7% | 7.3% |
| Wikipedia | 5.8% | 3.8% | 8.0% |
| Review platforms | 2.9% | 3.3% | 2.5% |
| Social media and forums | 1.3% | 1.0% | 1.5% |
| News and media | 0.9% | 1.1% | 0.8% |
| Government | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.3% |
Three things stand out. Review platforms are small overall (2.9%) but carry restaurants: 23.3% of restaurant citations, nearly all TripAdvisor, while every other industry was at 2.0% or less. Directories count for more in English (11.7%) than in Arabic (7.3%), because the big English directories and media barely reach Arabic answers: Practo (30 citations), TimeOut Dubai (24), Gulf News (18), Doctify (15) and ClassPass (15) were cited only in English answers. And Wikipedia doubles in Arabic, which we come back to below.
Is there one site every business should be on?
No. The 4,634 citations came from 1,954 different websites, and 1,283 of them (66%) were cited once and never again. The ten most-cited sites together made up only 18.1% of all citations. With live search, the assistant builds each answer from the handful of pages that fit that exact question, so the sources change with every area, service and language.
These were the most-cited sites across all 500 answers:
| Site | Citations | In English answers | In Arabic answers | Answers it appeared in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| en.wikipedia.org | 267 | 88 | 179 | 144 |
| bayut.com | 143 | 59 | 84 | 107 |
| tripadvisor.com | 106 | 51 | 55 | 52 |
| propertyfinder.ae | 98 | 58 | 40 | 82 |
| ar.airbnb.com | 61 | 0 | 61 | 29 |
| dxbproperties.ae | 39 | 0 | 39 | 36 |
| uaezoom.com | 34 | 0 | 34 | 30 |
| apilproperties.com | 31 | 4 | 27 | 25 |
| practo.com | 30 | 30 | 0 | 14 |
| heliumdoc.com | 29 | 4 | 25 | 21 |
| lawyer-alaa-aljasmi.com | 26 | 0 | 26 | 14 |
| shuraa.com | 25 | 1 | 24 | 19 |
| fresha.com | 24 | 18 | 6 | 18 |
| excelproperties.ae | 24 | 1 | 23 | 21 |
| timeoutdubai.com | 24 | 24 | 0 | 17 |
| drivenproperties.com | 24 | 8 | 16 | 22 |
Property portals reach far beyond property. Bayut and Property Finder were cited 241 times, and 176 of those (73%) were for questions that had nothing to do with real estate: education and childcare (60), restaurants (39) and fitness (36). The pages were their area guides and blogs, with titles like "Best Garages in Abu Dhabi: Grace Auto Repair, Aarya & More - MyBayut" and "Top Gyms in Al Barsha: Fitness First, Nitro Gym & More - MyBayut".
ar.airbnb.com is the odd one. It had 61 citations, all in Arabic answers, and 30 of them were for gym and fitness questions. They were rental and "experience" listings, such as a yoga session in Miami's South Beach (تجربة يوغا فريدة في ساوث بيتش في ميامي). The search matched the Arabic words and listed a page about another city.
How often does AI cite the business it names?
Business websites are the biggest single input, so we checked how direct that link is. For each business named in an English answer, we looked for its own website among the sources of that same answer. For at least 36% of them (419 of 1,160), it was there. That is a lower bound: our matching only catches a name that also appears in the web address.
| Industry | Businesses named in English answers | Own website among that answer's sources |
|---|---|---|
| Home services | 123 | 70% |
| Automotive | 120 | 58% |
| Law firms | 79 | 44% |
| Dental clinics | 111 | 42% |
| Aesthetics and dermatology | 95 | 38% |
| Business setup | 104 | 34% |
| Education and childcare | 139 | 33% |
| Fitness and wellness | 118 | 25% |
| Real estate | 107 | 23% |
| Restaurants and cafes | 164 | 5.5% |
For a plumber, a garage or a law firm, your own page is the main way into the answer. For a restaurant it barely matters: those answers are built from TripAdvisor, TimeOut and area guides. We left Arabic answers out of this count, because Arabic business names rarely match a Latin web address and the number would be wrong.
Which dental clinic in Dubai has female dentists?
"Based on the search results, here are several dental clinics in Dubai that have female dentists:" The answer then listed Michael's Dental Clinic, Dr Aimen Zia Dental Clinic, Dr Joy Dental Clinic, Versailles Dental Clinic and American MD Center.
How much do "best" and "top" lists matter?
A lot. 37.7% of all citations had "best", "top", "leading", "ranked" or "أفضل" in the title or address: 43.0% in English answers and 32.3% in Arabic. 430 of the 500 answers cited at least one such page. The share depends heavily on the industry:
| Industry | List-style share, all | English answers | Arabic answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants and cafes | 65.1% | 72.8% | 57.3% |
| Fitness and wellness | 47.0% | 55.0% | 38.9% |
| Dental clinics | 45.8% | 47.2% | 44.2% |
| Education and childcare | 43.8% | 49.1% | 38.7% |
| Aesthetics and dermatology | 41.1% | 40.8% | 41.5% |
| Law firms | 37.9% | 46.5% | 29.5% |
| Business setup | 27.9% | 34.8% | 20.8% |
| Real estate | 26.8% | 30.3% | 23.2% |
| Home services | 22.1% | 32.7% | 10.7% |
| Automotive | 20.3% | 23.0% | 17.5% |
Some real titles from the cited pages:
- "The 10 Best Restaurants in Deira Dubai - Tripadvisor"
- "22 best Pilates studios Dubai: Where to go for reformer, mat classes and more"
- "Top 20+ Business Consulting Companies in Sharjah (2026) - TechBehemoths"
- "Top-rated Hair Transplant clinics in Al Nahda, Sharjah - Doctify"
- "128 Best Dental Clinics in Sharjah [2026] - Zavis"
- أفضل عيادات أسنان في عجمان - Property Finder Blog UAE (Best dental clinics in Ajman)
- أفضل 10 صالات رياضية في دبي مارينا (Top 10 gyms in Dubai Marina, on a property company's blog)
Many of these lists come from inside the category. At least 151 of the 1,747 list-style citations were on the website of a business that the same answer then named. Many more were a clinic's or agency's own service page with "Best" in the title, like the five dental pages above. When a question asks for the best X in an area, a page that calls itself the best X in that area gets read.
Why does AI cite Wikipedia so much?
Wikipedia was the single most-cited site: 271 citations in 146 answers, 267 of them from English Wikipedia. Arabic answers cited it far more than English ones (183 times against 88), and almost always the English articles.
But the articles were a scattered mix. There were 175 different ones, and only 19 of the 271 citations (7%) were for an article whose title appears anywhere in the answer text. Only 6 matched a business the answer named. Some examples:
- "Amana Contracting and Steel Buildings", cited 15 times, for Arabic questions such as a dental clinic in Ajman that takes insurance, hair transplants in Ajman and PRO services in Dubai.
- "Low Pay Commission", a UK body, for "Which agency in JLT charges the lowest commission?"
- "Quick Quack Car Wash", a US chain, for the best car wash in Deira and in Al Barsha.
- "Saudi Women's Premier League", for ladies-only gyms in Abu Dhabi and JLT, asked in Arabic.
- "Seomyeon Medical Street", in South Korea, for Botox in Downtown Dubai, asked in Arabic.
Our reading. The search tool attaches Wikipedia articles that share a word with the question, and the answer is then written from the other sources. For a small or mid-sized UAE business, Wikipedia is not where AI recommendations come from, so it is not where to spend effort.
Does AI use government websites?
Almost never. Our address list put 0.2% of citations in the government group, and when we checked each one by hand, only 5 of the 4,634 came from UAE government websites: a Dubai Health Authority facility listing (for a dental question), Ajman's law on property registration, an Ajman Free Zone FAQ, Dubai DED's instant licence page and one u.ae page on mainland company steps.
Foreign government sites showed up more often. Seven of our questions asked how to find a RERA-registered agent (3 in English, 4 in Arabic). All seven answers explained steps instead of naming brokers, and none cited the Dubai Land Department. Three of the Arabic ones, for Jumeirah, Al Barsha and Al Nahda, cited Saudi Arabia's my.gov.sa and rega.gov.sa and Bahrain's rera.gov.bh (Bahrain's regulator also uses the name RERA): 8 citations in all.
A gap you can fill. Buyers ask AI about licences, regulators and rules, and the official pages are not what gets cited. A business that explains the rule on its own site, with the regulator's name, the steps, the fee and a link, gives the assistant something it is missing.
Do Arabic answers use the same websites?
No. 90.2% of the citations in Arabic answers were Arabic pages, from 77.0% in business setup to 97.4% in law. The leading sites were different too:
| Rank | English answers (citations) | Arabic answers (citations) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | en.wikipedia.org (88) | en.wikipedia.org (179) |
| 2 | bayut.com (59) | bayut.com (84) |
| 3 | propertyfinder.ae (58) | ar.airbnb.com (61) |
| 4 | tripadvisor.com (51) | tripadvisor.com (55) |
| 5 | practo.com (30) | propertyfinder.ae (40) |
| 6 | timeoutdubai.com (24) | dxbproperties.ae (39) |
| 7 | gulfnews.com (18) | uaezoom.com (34) |
| 8 | fresha.com (18) | apilproperties.com (27) |
| 9 | yellowpages-uae.com (17) | lawyer-alaa-aljasmi.com (26) |
| 10 | zavis.ai (16) | heliumdoc.com (25) |
Three patterns show up in Arabic:
- Property companies' Arabic blogs stand in for directories. Seven property company sites were cited 145 times in Arabic answers, and 80 of those were for questions outside property, mostly schools (25), gyms (21) and restaurants (13), through posts such as "the top 10 gyms in Dubai Marina".
- Businesses with real Arabic pages get used. Oris Dental Center's site was cited 14 times, all in Arabic answers, and Claude named the clinic in 8 Arabic answers. The Alaa Al Jasmi law office's Arabic site was cited 26 times, more than any other site in law, and the office was named in 10 answers. Shuraa's Arabic pages were cited 24 times, and Shuraa was the most-named business setup company in live search, in 16 of 50 answers.
- Saudi pages leak in. At least 87 citations in Arabic answers (3.8%) came from Saudi sites (a .sa address, or a Saudi section of a regional site such as Vezeeta's and Tebcan's Saudi pages), spread over 46 of the 250 Arabic answers. In English answers it was 9 citations in 5 answers. Our Arabic report has the details.
Get onto these: the sites AI cited most, by industry
These are the outside sites (directories, guides, lists and platforms, not single businesses) that Claude cited most in each industry, with citation counts. The last column repeats the own-site share from above. Being listed is the first job; being listed with your area, services, hours and prices written out is the second.
| Industry | Most-cited outside sites, English answers | Most-cited outside sites, Arabic answers | Own site cited (English) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dental clinics | Practo (17), Zavis (16), Doctify (9), bestdentists.ae (8), Yelp (5) | HeliumDoc (9), Altibbi (7), Zavis (5); Saudi pages of Vezeeta (8) and Tebcan (8) also appeared | 42% |
| Aesthetics and dermatology | Fresha (13), Practo (13), Doctify (6), HealthFinder (4) | HeliumDoc (15), Tajmeels (8), Altibbi (5), Fresha (4) | 38% |
| Real estate | Bayut (22), Property Finder (19), Dubizzle (5) | Bayut (15), Property Finder (9), plus brokers' own Arabic "best broker" posts | 23% |
| Business setup | Yellow Pages UAE (5), UAE Free Zone Finder (4), CitySearch (3) | Mostly consultants' own Arabic guides; shuraa.com alone had 23 | 34% |
| Law firms | Lawzana (6), Legal 500 (4) | lawyer-in-uae.com (17), ar.lawyersdubai.ae (8) | 44% |
| Restaurants and cafes | TripAdvisor (46), TimeOut Dubai (13), Wanderlog (11), Bayut guides (10), Zomato (5) | TripAdvisor (45), Bayut (16), Michelin Guide (12), dubairestaurants.guide (11) | 5.5% |
| Home services | Urban Company (8), contractorsuae.com (4), Yellow Pages UAE (3) | Arabic cleaning guides and blogs: mzlat.com (9), tshteebat.com (7), cleaninguae.org (6) | 70% |
| Fitness and wellness | ClassPass (15), TimeOut Dubai (10), Bayut (10), GetFitDXB (9), UAE Personal Trainers (8), GymFinder (6) | Bayut (16), uaezoom (10), property blogs (Excel Properties 10, DXB Properties 8), viewdubai.net (7) | 25% |
| Education and childcare | Property Finder (13), CourseTakers (10), Bayut (9), Laimoon (8), Edarabia (5), Illumine (5) | Bayut (21), Property Finder (17), uaezoom (8), Illumine (4) | 33% |
| Automotive | Yellow Pages UAE (7), Gulf News (4), HiDubai (3), CitySearch (3) | OpenSooq (4), uaezoom (4) | 58% |
Some industries are won mostly on outside sites (restaurants, fitness, education), others mostly on your own pages (home services, automotive, law). In Arabic, the big directories thin out, and Arabic guides, property blogs and businesses' own Arabic pages fill the space. A business with no Arabic page is missing from the part of the web Arabic answers read.
What we'd do for you
In an AI visibility audit (AED 1,950) we ask your buyers' questions, 30 per language, on four AI tools, save every source they cite, and give you the list of websites AI trusts in your industry, with the ones you are on and the ones you are missing, next to three named competitors. On a monthly plan we then build the pages each question needs, in English and Arabic, work on the outside listings and mentions, and re-check the same questions on ChatGPT and Gemini (Google AI) on a schedule. If you only want to see where you stand first, the AI check is free.
What this data does not show
- It is one run of each question on one day, 21 October 2026. Sources change from day to day.
- These are the sources of Claude's live web search, which runs on a US-based index. ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI search their own way and may cite other pages.
- Site types were sorted by web address with a fixed list, so smaller directories sit in the "other sites" group.
- The own-website count is a lower bound and covers English answers only.
- We counted citations. We did not measure how much each page shaped the final answer.