How Blank Spaces grew its artificial intelligence citations from 10 to 151
Blank SpacesDigital wellness app- 15xArtificial intelligence citations10 → 151
- +232%Referring domains140 → 465
- +44%Domain rating27 → 39
- Company
- Blank Spaces
- Industry
- Digital wellness app
- Focus
- Screen time and app blocking
- Website
- blankspaces.app
- Campaign
- Artificial intelligence search optimisation and listicle links
Ten high-authority placements in one quarter multiplied Blank Spaces’ citations across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Grok and Perplexity.
Results snapshot
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artificial intelligence citations | 10 | 151 | 15x growth in monthly citations |
| Referring domains | 140 | 465 | +232% referring domain growth |
| Domain rating | 27 | 39 | +44% domain rating growth |
Placements secured (over the three-month campaign): 10 domains, average domain rating 68, ranging from 43 to 91.
Overview
Blank Spaces is a digital wellness app that helps iPhone users reduce screen time and break the habit of compulsive phone use. The app has passed one million installs and serves a community of more than 300,000 people.
People choose apps in this category from recommendation lists, not by searching for a brand name. They ask for the best screen time app, the best app blocker or the best digital detox app, and more and more they ask an artificial intelligence assistant instead of a search engine. Blank Spaces needed to appear in those answers.
Sentosa ran a three-month campaign from 1 April to 30 June 2026, built around high-authority listicle placements. We secured ten placements on ten different websites, with an average domain rating of 68. By the end of June, monthly artificial intelligence citations had risen from 10 to 151, referring domains from 140 to 465, and domain rating from 27 to 39.
Campaign strategy
Rather than chase volume, the campaign focused on the one type of placement that does the most for visibility in artificial intelligence answers: the ranked listicle.
Listicles are roundup articles such as “best screen time apps” or “top digital detox tools”. They are the pages that large language models find and summarise when someone asks for a recommendation. A place in those articles puts the brand directly in the path of the answer.
Every website was checked against four standards before outreach began, and had to meet all four:
- Domain rating: most placements landed between 62 and 91.
- Real organic traffic: so the authority figures were backed by genuine search visibility.
- Existing artificial intelligence citations: how often artificial intelligence tools already cited the website. This was the standard that made the difference.
- Topic fit: only productivity, remote work and software review websites, where a screen time app belongs naturally.
Before the campaign, the ten chosen websites already had 16,099 citations of their own between them. Placing Blank Spaces inside content that artificial intelligence tools already read is what turned new links into new citations.
Campaign results
Measured from the March 2026 starting point to the end of June 2026, after three months of work.
| Measure | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artificial intelligence citations | 10 | 151 | 15x |
| Referring domains | 140 | 465 | +232% |
| Domain rating | 27 | 39 | +44% |
| Organic traffic per month | 226 | 566 | +150% |
| Listicle placements | 0 | 7 | +7 |
| Links added to existing articles | 0 | 3 | +3 |
- 10151Artificial intelligence citations
- 140465Referring domains
- 2739Domain rating
- 226566Organic traffic per month
- 07Listicle placements
- 03Links added to existing articles
Note: Traffic figures are Ahrefs estimates, as restated in the latest report for each period. The first placement went live on 8 April 2026.
Note: In May, citations in Google AI Overviews and Gemini dipped for a short time while those systems re-crawled and re-assessed their sources. The May placements were fully reflected in the June figures. Ahrefs started tracking Grok in June 2026. Source: Ahrefs.
The ten placements
Every placement, with the website’s authority figures at the time it went live. Together the ten websites receive about 411,800 organic visits a month.
| Domain rating | Organic traffic per month | Citations in artificial intelligence answers | Month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 91 | 90,600 | 6,279 | June |
| 79 | 2,200 | 561 | May |
| 74 | 9,700 | 217 | April |
| 70 | 1,700 | 887 | May |
| 68 | 1,700 | 171 | April |
| 66 | 69,800 | 3,489 | April |
| 66 | 9,000 | 1,772 | May |
| 64 | 1,800 | 377 | May |
| 62 | 225,000 | 2,188 | May |
| 43 | 286 | 158 | April |
Note: All figures are from Ahrefs at the time of placement.
Strategy
Five decisions explain most of the result. Each one can be repeated on a similar project.
- Listicles, not general guest posts. Ranked roundup articles are the pages artificial intelligence assistants pull from when someone asks for a recommendation. Focusing on that one format put the brand in the path of the answer.
- Websites checked for existing citations. Every candidate website was checked for how often artificial intelligence tools already cited it. The ten chosen websites had 16,099 citations between them, and that trust carried over to Blank Spaces.
- Authority over volume. Ten placements at an average domain rating of 68 did more than a larger number of weaker links would have, and kept the link profile clean.
- A steady monthly pace. Placements went live in every month of the quarter, not in one batch. The steady pace supported the rise in domain rating from 27 to 39 without any pattern that would look artificial.
- Reporting built around artificial intelligence visibility. Reports tracked citations on each platform alongside standard search figures, and every live link was shared with the client as it went live.
Conclusion
In one quarter, ten carefully chosen placements took Blank Spaces from almost no presence in artificial intelligence answers to 151 citations a month across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Grok and Perplexity. Referring domains grew by 232%, domain rating rose by 12 points and organic traffic rose by 150%.
The lesson applies well beyond this client. Optimising for artificial intelligence answers is not separate from link building. It is link building aimed at the pages artificial intelligence tools actually read. When websites are chosen for their own citations, not for domain rating alone, authority and visibility in artificial intelligence answers grow together.
Blank Spaces has continued the work, and the growth has held. By August 2026 the website had reached a domain rating of 41 and 688 referring domains.
