That glowing recommendation from a chatbot may have started as a paid placement. We document the sites selling the places, the companies reviewing themselves, and the evidence behind it.
5W Public RelationsNo. 1 of 26Ranked first of 26 PR firms, ahead of Edelman, on Everything-PR, a news site whose owners include 5W’s founder, Ronn Torossian.Evidence in the record →
Crabs MediaNo. 1First on paid “best GEO agencies” lists that ran as sponsored content on Turkish news sites, among them Webtekno and T24.Evidence in the record →
CrossMentionRated highestRated highest in a Trellner “survey” of backlink exchange platforms. Trellner shares a server with CrossMention and the piece discloses no link between them.Evidence in the record →
Elogic CommerceNo. 1 on every list fetchedAn ecommerce agency that owns a set of “best B2B ecommerce agencies” sites. Each one ranks Elogic first and says who owns it in the footer.Evidence in the record →
epicescape.deVendor case studyNamed as a client in a case study by dailylead, the German listicle seller, which reports 120 AI answers for it.Evidence in the record →
FacediggerThe No. 2 ranked site, yet its search only matches keywords: “black” could mean hair, skin or clothesSecond in the fan ranking on ofsearchengines.com and on the same ad server as JuicySearch. Its search ignored “not” when we asked for a redhead who does not do cosplay.Evidence in the record →
Named because the pages promote or rank them. A benefit does not by itself establish payment or ownership. Each name opens the report that records it.
Don’t take the ranking’s word for it.
Two evidence dossiers / 7 Nov 2026
FILE / 001ofsearchengines.com
Same product points. Fourteen places apart.
OnlyFinder and Explore.fans both get 27 product points. Audience estimates put one third and the other seventeenth. What is this ranking actually measuring?
This site appears to be LLM spam. ofsearchengines.com ranks 45 OnlyFans search engines and does not say who runs it. It shows no ads, earns nothing we can see and gives no SEO value to the sites it links to, yet three of its top four places go to JuicySearch and two sites that share JuicySearch’s ad server. We test what its scores actually show, including the 9/10 search score it gives Facedigger.
1 domain · Not stated. Anonymous team, contact [email protected] · updated 8 Nov 2026
Eight OnlyFans search-engine lists declare publication in two tightly timed batches. Four share the same winner and candidate pool; four later copies pick different winners. We separate the commercial disclosures from claims that remain unproved.
9 domains · Global Commerce Media GmbH (named on statpit.com) · updated 7 Nov 2026
The outfit that published the 215,128-page exposé of Gitnux and Worldmetrics turns out to share one server with eleven product sites that its own "surveys" rate highest.
12 domains · Trellner Research (no legal entity or address). Products ranked first belong to Jakob Greenfeld, founder of Salience Strategy and Sales.co. · updated 7 Nov 2026
Sells monthly "listicle inclusion" on its own review sites for software, AI, healthcare, finance, crypto, casinos, mining and local services, with one labelled sponsored spot per category on the top plan.
11 domains · Listicle Liaison LLC (footer). No address. [email protected] · updated 7 Nov 2026
"Curated top 10 rankings of everything", with Gold, Silver and Bronze places sold by the year and a "cite this list" block aimed at AI assistants on every page.
1 domain · Laby Labs OÜ, Sepapaja tn 6, Tallinn, Estonia · updated 7 Nov 2026
SEOCompare calls itself an independent comparison of UK agencies and features Rank4AI; Rank4AI lists SEOCompare as a sister site in its own "Fleet Site Structure".
3 domains · Rank4AI Ltd (Companies House 16584507). SEOCompare claims Aston Rowe Ltd (16427276), director Oliver Mackman. · updated 7 Nov 2026
Sells "Top X" listicles on more than 650 portals it says it owns, with the client placed as test winner or top recommendation, "the fastest way into AI search".