Glenn Gabe, an SEO practitioner, says ChatGPT is hiding the control that reveals a response’s cited sources behind an extra click. He posted on X that some replies no longer carry a visible link to sources in the footer where it used to sit. Users must now open a three dot icon labeled “More actions” and pick an option before a panel of citations even opens on the side.
Gabe called this a real risk to citation visibility, since few readers will dig through a secondary menu to find where an answer’s claims came from. He also wondered aloud whether pulling attention away from citations serves another purpose inside the interface, though that idea is his own guess. The Search Engine Roundtable report carries no statement from OpenAI explaining or confirming the change, and no rollout scope or timeline appears anywhere in it.
Treat this as one observer’s spotted variant, not a confirmed product change. Each extra click OpenAI inserts between an answer and its sources is a lever the company controls alone, and publishers who depend on that click for referral traffic have no vote in where it sits.
Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reported the change on August 13, 2026, citing Glenn Gabe’s post on X.
