AEO Rankings · Marketing

AEO for healthcare SEO agencies: AI search visibility ranking

By monitoraeo Last updated August 02, 2026 Refreshed every 90 days

How AI search engines rank healthcare SEO agencies by visibility and citations. 20 brands measured quarterly across Google AI Mode: which brands the AI names in answers, which domains it cites as sources, and how the leaders compare. Healthcare SEO agencies helping providers, clinics, and health brands improve organic visibility, local search performance, and patient acquisition. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →

Avg visibility across category

Avg citation rate

20/20

Brands successfully audited

X LinkedIn

When buyers inquire about Healthcare SEO agencies, AI engines frequently highlight Cardinal Digital Marketing as the leader, with a visibility score of 37.5%. Other top brands include WebFX and Healthcare Success. These recommendations reflect not just popularity but tangible authority in the healthcare SEO space.

The rankings primarily draw from top-cited domains like percepture.com and youtube.com, as well as aggregator sites such as clutch.co and therankmasters.com. This reliance on diverse sources means that the rankings emphasize both expert opinions and collective consumer feedback.

For buyers, this list underscores the importance of looking at brands with recent reviews and strong third-party endorsements. AI engines often prioritize agencies that demonstrate topical authority within specific subcategories, making these factors crucial when deciding on a partner for healthcare SEO efforts.

At a glance

Category leader Cardinal Digital Marketing 38% visibility · named in 3 of 8 AI answers

Most cited brand Healthcare Success 38% citation rate · the AI's most-trusted source brand in healthcare SEO agencies

Top cited domain percepture.com Referenced by AI across the healthcare SEO agencies query set — the highest-leverage PR target in this category

Visibility spread 38pp Gap between top and bottom of the ranking · 17 brands at 0% (invisible to the AI)

What we observed in this category

Cardinal Digital Marketing holds the top rank with a visibility score of 37.5%, which is more than twelve times the category average of 3.1%. That gap is significant because it means AI Mode is surfacing Cardinal in over a third of relevant queries while most competitors register zero visibility. WebFX sits second at 12.5% visibility, and every other brand outside the top five scores 0.0%, confirming that AI visibility in this category is heavily concentrated at the very top.

A notable divergence exists between being named and being cited. Healthcare Success and PatientGain each carry 0.0% visibility yet both record 37.5% citation rates, matching Cardinal's visibility score. Cardinal itself has a 0.0% citation rate despite leading on visibility. This means AI Mode mentions Cardinal by name in responses but pulls sourced links from Healthcare Success and PatientGain, splitting the named-brand signal from the trusted-source signal across different players.

Google AI Mode is the dominant engine across all 20 brands in this audit, with no other engine appearing as a top performer for any brand. The top cited sources listed in the data include third-party review and comparison platforms such as clutch.co and youtube.com alongside specialist health marketing sites like healthcaresuccess.com and percepture.com. This pattern suggests AI Mode is anchoring its sourcing on external validation and list-format content rather than brand-owned domains alone.

Movers & shakers since last refresh

Biggest visibility risers

Cardinal Digital Marketing 0% → 38% · rank #5 → #1
+38pp
WebFX 0% → 12% · rank #4 → #2
+12pp
Intrepy 0% → 12% · rank #6 → #5
+12pp

The AEO ranking

#	Brand	Visibility	Citation	Top engine
1	Cardinal Digital Marketing cardinaldigitalmarketing.com	38%	0%	Google AI Mode
Cardinal leads with 37.5% visibility, more than twelve times the 3.1% category average, but records 0.0% citation rate, meaning AI names it without linking to it.
2	WebFX webfx.com	12%	12%	Google AI Mode
WebFX is the only top-five brand where visibility and citation are equal at 12.5% each, suggesting a more balanced presence in AI-generated responses than its peers.
3	Healthcare Success healthcaresuccess.com	0%	38%	Google AI Mode
Healthcare Success records 0.0% visibility yet 37.5% citation rate, placing it among the most-linked sources in AI responses despite rarely being named as a brand.
4	PatientGain patientgain.com	0%	38%	Google AI Mode
PatientGain mirrors Healthcare Success exactly with 0.0% visibility and 37.5% citations, indicating AI treats its domain as a reference source rather than a featured brand.
5	Intrepy intrepyhealth.com	12%	0%	Google AI Mode
Intrepy holds 12.5% visibility and 0.0% citation rate, rising one rank in the current period, but its citation gap mirrors Cardinal's, limiting its sourcing authority.
6	NoGood nogood.io	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
7	Practis practis.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
8	Sagefrog sagefrog.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
9	DoctorLogic doctorlogic.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
10	iHealthSpot ihealthspot.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
11	Scorpion Healthcare scorpion.co	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
12	Glacial Multimedia glacial.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
13	Advice Media advicemedia.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
14	Etna Interactive etnainteractive.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
15	Hedy & Hopp hedyandhopp.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
16	NP Digital npdigital.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
17	RNO1 rno1.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
18	Smith & Jones smithandjones.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
19	Graphisads graphisads.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
20	Practice Builders practicebuilders.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode

Sources AI engines trust in this category

Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on healthcare SEO agencies, these are the domains Google AI Mode cited most often. If you're not on this list — or if your competitors are — that's a concrete PR / linkbuilding target.

percepture.comyoutube.comonely.comclutch.cotherankmasters.comouterboxdesign.compracticebeat.comhealthcaresuccess.com

How to read this AEO ranking

Four things worth knowing before you act on the numbers above. These are the same definitions across every industry page — for category-specific observations, see the What we observed section above (where available) and the per-brand insights inline in the ranking.

Visibility = being named

A brand's visibility % is the share of AI answers that mention it by name in the response prose. This is who AI engines actively recommend to the buyer. More on visibility →

Citation rate = being trusted

Citation rate is the share of AI answers that include the brand's domain as a clickable source link. This is what the AI treats as authoritative evidence, different from being named. More on citation rate →

Top engine differs by brand

The "top engine" column shows which AI surface each brand performs best on. Big gaps between a brand's score across engines usually points to specific content or schema gaps. How AI engines pick sources →

AEO rankings move month to month

AI engines re-crawl and re-rank on shorter cycles than classical search. We re-audit every brand on this list at least every 90 days and refresh this page automatically. How AI search ranking works →

Run an AEO audit on your own healthcare SEO agencies brand

The brands above were curated from public market-leader lists. Want the same answer engine optimisation measurement against your own brand — including the queries you appear on, which competitors get named instead, and a prioritised fix list? Run a free preview.

Audit your healthcare SEO agencies brand → Browse all AEO rankings Methodology →

Frequently asked about AEO for healthcare SEO agencies

Who leads AI visibility in the Healthcare SEO agencies category?

Cardinal Digital Marketing leads with 37.5% visibility, rising from rank 5 to rank 1 in the current period. Its nearest competitor, WebFX, sits at 12.5% visibility.

Which brands are cited most by AI in Healthcare SEO agency responses?

Healthcare Success and PatientGain both record 37.5% citation rates, the highest in the category. Both achieve this without any measured visibility, meaning AI links to them without naming them as featured brands.

What sources does Google AI Mode anchor on when responding to Healthcare SEO queries?

The audit identifies clutch.co, youtube.com, healthcaresuccess.com, and percepture.com among the top cited sources, suggesting AI favours third-party directories and specialist health marketing content.

Is there a meaningful gap between visibility and citation in this category?

Yes. Cardinal Digital Marketing has 37.5% visibility and 0.0% citations, while Healthcare Success has the reverse: 0.0% visibility and 37.5% citations. Only WebFX has parity between the two metrics.

How concentrated is AI visibility across the Healthcare SEO agencies category?

Visibility is highly concentrated. The category average is 3.1%, yet six of the top ten brands score 0.0% visibility, and only three brands recorded any visibility gain in the current period.

Which engine dominates AI coverage for Healthcare SEO agencies?

Google AI Mode is listed as the top engine for all 20 brands in this audit, with no other engine appearing as a primary source for any brand in the dataset.