WordPress Web Hosting: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which web hosting brands led AI recommendation coverage in October 2026, and by how much?
• Which brands posted the largest cumulative coverage gain and decline since the July 2026 baseline?

Hostinger led the WordPress Web Hosting category in October 2026 with valid recommendation coverage of 86.5%, up 3.5 points from 83.0% in September 2026 and extending the three-month increase streak that began at 75.7% in July 2026. SiteGround held second place at 81.5%, down slightly from 82.0% in September 2026 after two months of gains since baseline. The gap between the two leaders widened to 5.0 percentage points in October 2026 from 1.0 percentage point in September 2026.

Kinsta posted the category's largest single-month move, falling 6.9 points to 43.5% from 50.4% in September 2026, breaking a two-month run of gains; measured against its July 2026 baseline of 38.6%, Kinsta's position remains a modest 4.9-point increase. Viewed across the full baseline-to-current period, Cloudways recorded the category's largest cumulative gain, rising 16.2 points from 42.4% in July 2026 to 58.6% in October 2026 with an increase in every month since baseline. Flywheel recorded the largest cumulative decline, falling 5.9 points from 7.5% in July 2026 to 1.6% in October 2026, with declines in two of the last three months.

The benchmark drew from 800 prompt-surface observations in October 2026 (600 in the July 2026 baseline) and produced 642 qualified observations after qualification, compared with 469 in July 2026.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. All six families were present in all four months. September 2026, the intermediate month, saw qualified observations reach 649 with Hostinger holding the lead at 83.0%.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending WordPress Web Hosting

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many prompt-surface observations qualified for the public benchmark, and how does that compare with the baseline?
• What is the difference between the raw collection and the qualified denominator behind brand-level percentages?

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. For methodology details, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which hosting brands ranked highest on presence, valid recommendation coverage, and top-three placement?
• How differently do the leading brands perform on rank-one rate compared with their overall coverage?

How to Read the Standings

Presence rate is the share of qualified observations in which a brand is mentioned at all.

Valid recommendation coverage is the share of qualified observations in which a brand appears in a recommendation-shaped answer, including shortlists and ranked lists.

Top-three rate is the share of qualified observations in which a brand appears in the first three recommended positions.

Rank-one rate is the share of qualified observations in which a brand is the single first recommendation.

Net sentiment is the share of positive mentions minus the share of negative mentions across all observations in which the brand appears.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Whose AI recommendation coverage rose or fell the most since the July 2026 baseline?
• Which brands broke multi-month gains with a decline in October 2026?

Three brands broke an upward streak this month. Kinsta posted the category's largest month-over-month decline, falling 6.9 points to 43.5% from 50.4% in September 2026, ending a two-month run of gains. Bluehost eased 3.7 points to 63.5% from 67.2% over the same period, and WP Engine eased 4.5 points to 51.7% from 56.2%, both also ending two-month increases.

Largest Increase: Cloudways

Cloudways posted the largest coverage gain of the series, rising 16.2 points from 42.4% in July 2026 to 58.6% in October 2026, with gains in each of the three months since baseline. Presence also rose over the same period, reaching 62.8% from 47.5%, a 15.3-point increase. The top-three rate rose 5.5 points to 18.5%, while the rank-one rate fell 1.5 points to 0.6%.

Largest Decline: Flywheel

Flywheel was the largest decliner in the category, falling 5.9 points from 7.5% in July 2026 to 1.6% in October 2026, with declines in two of the last three months. The drop was concentrated in the most recent periods: coverage fell to 3.5% in September 2026 before reaching 1.6% in October 2026. Presence also fell, reaching 3.3% in October 2026 from 13.0% in July 2026, a 9.7-point decrease. The top-three rate moved to 0.5% from 1.9% over the same period, while the rank-one rate remained at 0.0%.

Category Leader: Hostinger

Hostinger holds the category lead, reaching 86.5% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, up from 75.7% in July 2026, with gains in each of the three months since baseline. Hostinger's lead over the next brand widened from a 1.0 percentage point gap in September 2026 to 5.0 percentage points in October 2026. The brand also leads on placement, appearing in a top-three slot in 79.3% of qualified observations, up from 56.5% at baseline.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Why do brands with similar recommendation coverage differ so sharply on rank-one rate?
• Where did the leading brands concentrate in top-three versus first-position recommendations?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The leading cluster by top-three rate looks different from the coverage leaderboard.

Hostinger and SiteGround ended the month within 5.0 percentage points on coverage, yet Hostinger's rank-one rate of 65.7% was substantially higher than SiteGround's 11.7%, a reminder that similar coverage can hide different first-position rates.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent class do the qualified observations currently measure, and which classes remain unpopulated?

All 642 qualified observations in October 2026 and all 469 in July 2026 fell into the brand recommendation class, meaning the benchmark measures AI responses that recommend specific hosting providers.

The current public series measures the brand recommendation class of discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the pricing and value or multi-brand comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What information does each prompt-level observation retain, and what does the source layer show?
• Why does a cited source not automatically prove it caused a recommendation?

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, private or sponsored channels, or causality from a metric movement alone. It records what AI and search surfaces say when prompted about WordPress web hosting providers.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains received the most citations across AI platform responses, and how concentrated were they?
• Which tracked brand domains appeared in the top 10 cited sources?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, the benchmark observed 6,336 citations drawn from 948 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed: the top 10 domains account for 2,495 of 6,336 citations, or roughly 39.4% of the total, while the remaining 948 domains share the rest. Two tracked brand domains appear in the top 10: hostinger.com at rank 3 and bluehost.com at rank 9. User-generated and social platforms dominate the top of the list, with video and community sources ranking first and second, followed by a mix of technology review outlets and general business press.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how AI and search surfaces present, recommend, and rank brands across product categories. Each monthly measurement follows the same research protocol so that movements can be compared across time.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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