ChatGPT’s high-reasoning mode acted like a different search surface for brand visibility in a Semrush analysis with Kevin Indig. It cited different domains than in minimal reasoning mode and ran nearly five times as many web searches.
By the numbers. Only 25.6% of cited domains overlapped between minimal and high reasoning for the same prompts.
- Nearly three in four sources changed when ChatGPT shifted from Instant-style answers to Thinking-style answers.
Thinking mode used more sources. Citation rates rose from 50% in minimal reasoning to 68% in high reasoning. Cited answers also used more sources, rising from 2.6 to 4.5 citations per response. High reasoning ran 1,130 web searches across the test set, versus 245 for minimal reasoning.
Reddit lost ground. Reddit’s citation share fell from 15% to 7% when high reasoning was on. User-generated content and review sites dropped from 14.3% to 6%.
- Government and academic sources rose from 1.9% to 8.8%.
- Official documentation and support pages grew from 12.4% to 17.5%.
Comparison prompts drove searches. At the comparison stage, high reasoning averaged 24 sub-queries per prompt, versus 5.5 for minimal reasoning. Average citations also peaked there, at 9.8 per high-reasoning response versus 5.8 for minimal reasoning.
- For example, a CRM comparison may trigger separate searches for pricing, integrations, security, support pages, and documentation before ChatGPT forms its answer.
Early citations lasted longer. High reasoning was more likely to carry a brand from early research into later buying questions.
- In four of the 20 journeys tested, a brand cited at the problem stage still appeared at the selection stage. Minimal reasoning showed no full-journey persistence (whether a brand cited at the Problem stage survived to the Selection stage of the same journey).
- High reasoning also reused the same domains more often within a single answer. The same domain appeared multiple times in 51 of 100 high-reasoning responses, versus 26 of 100 minimal-reasoning responses.
Finance saw the biggest jump. The citation lift varied by category:
- Finance had the largest increase, with citation rates rising 28 percentage points in high reasoning.
- Health and lifestyle rose 24 points.
- B2B SaaS gained 16 points.
- Consumer tech barely moved, rising only 4 points.
- Even though high reasoning ran more sub-queries for consumer tech prompts than for any other category, it often landed on the same brands and sources as minimal reasoning.
Why we care. Your content may appear in fast ChatGPT answers but disappear when users ask more complex questions. Visibility depends on whether your pages, documentation, and third-party references can surface across the smaller searches ChatGPT runs before it answers.
About the data. Semrush and Indig tested 100 prompts across 20 buyer journeys in B2B SaaS, finance, consumer tech, and health and lifestyle. Each prompt ran once in minimal reasoning and once in high reasoning. The analysis tracked citation rate, cited sources, and fan-out queries.
The report. Only 25% of cited sources overlap between ChatGPT’s different reasoning modes [Study]
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