HOW OFTEN DO AI ASSISTANTS HALLUCINATE LINKS?

Summary from the TLDR Marketing newsletter

AI assistants send visitors to 404 pages 2.87X more often than Google search. ChatGPT had the highest 404 rates, with 1.01% of clicked URLs and 2.38% of cited URLs returning errors, compared to Google's 0.15% and 0.84%. Claude, Copilot, Perplexity, and Gemini had lower error rates, with Mistral being the lowest, but based on the smallest sample. Many errors stem from outdated links or hallucinated URLs that mimic real site structures but never existed. The study suggests using analytics to identify these links and either redirecting traffic or improving 404 pages to help visitors.