2026-09-03 / Signal #1
Three sites manufactured 215,128 “best software” pages so Perplexity would cite them
“Perplexity’s “sources” include three ghost sites that exist so AIs will believe them.”
The Story
Researchers asked Perplexity for the best products in 380 software categories. Nearly 60% of the cited sources sat outside the 100k most-visited sites. Three nearly identical domains, none of which existed before late 2023, had generated 215,128 machine-written “best X software” pages; two even titled their homepages “Facts & Grounding Page.
Why It Matters
The open web is being reverse-engineered into a feeding trough for retrieval. Knowledge is no longer found; it is farmed for the model.
Evidence
Trellner Research report (2 Sep 2026); Hacker News (448+ pts). Primary URL: https://trellner.com/reports/manufactured-sources-behind-ai-recommendations/
Sources
Daily scan: 2026-09-03