Does content freshness matter for AI citations?

Pages that answer one question directly, near the top, under a heading that matches how the question is asked. Comparison tables, specification lists, dated statistics, and short definitional passages are extracted most often, because each can be lifted whole and remain true without the surrounding page.

Perplexity searches the live web for every query, retrieves a shortlist of pages, and cites the ones whose passages most directly answer the question. It favours pages with a clear, extractable answer near the top, recent publication or update dates, and topical focus — a narrow page that answers precisely often beats a broader, higher-authority one.

Only if it adds coverage of questions you did not previously answer. Volume alone does nothing — an engine retrieves one passage per sub-query, so a second article on a question you already answer well competes with yourself. Breadth across a topic's fan-out beats depth on any single point.