Turning hallucinated AI citations into content ideas

LLM hallucinations are a known issue. But as frustrating as they may be, hallucinated AI citations are just a symptom.

Sometimes an AI-generated answer or article links to a page on your site that never existed. The URL looks perfectly plausible. The content isn’t there. And that invented link can reveal a topic people expect your site to cover.

That’s the gap worth paying attention to.

Buried in your broken backlink reports are those invented URLs: possible content gaps, topics worth investigating, and pages someone expected your site to have.

Each hallucinated URL is a signal. Zoom out, and you start to see patterns across dozens of those URLs that reveal where your next content opportunities lie.

After seeing a post from Tim Soulo about using Ahrefs to uncover these cases, we decided to dig into the data ourselves.

TL;DR

• AI-generated content sometimes links to plausible URLs that don’t exist. Those broken links can reveal topics other sites expect you to cover.
• In CXL’s original analysis, Ahrefs identified 84 broken pages with links from 257 referring domains. The URLs revealed potential content opportunities around related topics.
• Use Ahrefs Site Explorer’s Best by links report, filtered to HTTP 404, to find broken URLs with backlinks. Check the referring pages to identify likely hallucinations.
• Group recurring URL patterns into potential content themes, then verify those topics against existing content and customer research before publishing.
• Personalized 404 pages can help visitors recover from broken AI-generated links by directing them toward relevant content rather than leaving them at a dead end.

What can hallucinated 404 URLs reveal about content gaps?

Hallucinated URLs can reveal topics that other websites expect your brand to cover. When several broken links point to plausible, never-published articles, their URL slugs can suggest useful content gaps worth investigating.

404 errors usually signal technical issues: broken links, redirect gaps, or an old campaign URL that’s slipped through the cracks.

But AI assistants are introducing a new kind of 404, that may be more valuable than most marketers realize.

AI-generated answers and articles can link to plausible-looking URLs that were never real pages. Even though those URLs don’t exist, the topics behind them may still be useful.

After Tim Soulo surfaced this behavior using Ahrefs, we ran the same analysis on CXL’s own site. The numbers were modest but instructive:

• 84 total 404 pages detected
• 257 unique referring domains pointing to those broken URLs

That second number is the one that matters. 

These aren’t random crawl errors. Multiple independent sources, many of them AI-generated content or AI-assisted research outputs, are all pointing to the same hallucinated pages.

The URLs themselves are worth reading carefully. Pull them into a spreadsheet, and you’ll notice patterns: recurring topic clusters, specific framing choices, and implied expertise levels. 

This means AI tools aren’t hallucinating randomly. They’re generating URLs that match what should exist on a site like yours, given its existing content profile.

The insight: LLMs have formed a model of what your site covers. The hallucinated URLs represent the next logical layer of that model: topics adjacent to what you’ve published or questions you’ve gestured at but never fully answered.

How do you find hallucinated URLs in Ahrefs?

Ahrefs makes it easy to find broken pages that still have backlinks pointing to them. The next step is checking which of those links might have come from AI-generated content.

1. Open Site Explorer → Pages → Best by links. Enter your domain to see which pages are attracting backlinks, including pages that no longer exist.
2. Filter by HTTP code → 404 not found. This surfaces broken URLs with inbound links. Look at the URL slugs and referring domain counts to identify potential patterns.
3. Check the referring pages and export the data. Use the Links to page dropdown to see which websites link to each broken URL. For anchor text and surrounding context, open Backlinks profile → Broken backlinks. Export the relevant URLs and referring-page details for analysis.

The anchor text is particularly useful. 

If multiple AI-generated sources are pointing to /blog/b2b-content-attribution-framework with anchor text like “content attribution methodology,” that’s a clear signal about the specific framing your audience expects.

One important caveat: not every 404 is an LLM hallucination. Genuine broken links, old campaign URLs, and redirected content all show up in this view. 

You’re looking for patterns: URLs with plausible-but-nonexistent slugs, often under /blog/, often covering topics adjacent to your existing content. 

The referring domain context helps filter: a 404 with 12 referring domains from AI-generated content sites is a different signal than one link from a four-year-old forum post.

How do you turn hallucinated URLs into content ideas?

Group the suspected hallucinated URLs by topic, look for recurring patterns, and use those themes to generate content ideas. The strongest opportunities are the ones that fill a genuine content gap and match questions your audience is already asking.

Once you have the spreadsheet, the analysis is straightforward. Use a prompt like this:

Analyze this spreadsheet of 404 URLs exported from Ahrefs, including referring pages, referring domain counts, and anchor text where available. Identify URLs that appear to have been invented by AI-generated content, separating them from old pages, typos, or genuinely broken links. Group the likely hallucinated URLs into recurring topic themes. Based on the URL patterns and referring-page context, suggest 10 content ideas that address the likely reader intent. For each idea, provide: – The topic cluster and suggested article title. – The URLs or referring-page evidence behind the idea. – The likely reader question or intent. – What should be checked before publishing. Don’t invent missing sources or treat a URL alone as proof of demand.

What you’re doing here is reverse-engineering the research queries that prompted the hallucinations. LLMs tend to generate URLs that match expected patterns—so /blog/content-attribution-for-lean-teams signals something very specific about who was asking and what they needed.

The output is a shortlist of content ideas, organized by topic cluster, that you can validate against customer research and search demand before adding them to your editorial calendar.

A few things worth validating before you start writing:

• Check whether the topic is already covered elsewhere on your site, just under a different URL structure. Hallucinations sometimes point to content that exists but is poorly indexed or linked.
• Assess intent depth. Some hallucinated URLs suggest introductory overviews; others suggest very specific tactical content. Match your response to the implied depth.
• Look for clusters, not one-offs. A single hallucinated URL doesn’t mean much. But when five of them keep pointing at the same topic, you’re looking at a content gap.

For a more complete approach to validating those ideas, our content strategy for AI search guide covers using customer questions, citation patterns, and product relevance to prioritize opportunities.

How should you handle visitors landing on hallucinated URLs?

Give visitors a useful way forward. A personalized 404 page can point them toward relevant existing content, while a redirect makes sense when there’s a genuinely matching page available elsewhere on your site.

A standard 404 is a dead end. A visitor who arrived there from an AI-generated citation, following up on research they were already doing, gets nothing. They bounce, while you lose a warm, intent-driven visit.

The intervention is simple: a personalized 404 page that acknowledges the likely source of the error and redirects visitors toward real content. Something that says, in effect, we know why you’re here, and here’s what actually exists.

Because our LLM content gap analysis showed that hallucinated URLs were almost entirely concentrated under /blog/, we implemented a conditional rule: /blog/ 404s get the personalized experience, everything else gets the standard page. That keeps the personalization targeted and avoids overcomplicating non-blog error pages.

One thing to get right technically: the personalized page should still return an actual HTTP 404 status. If you return a 200 status for a missing page, Google can treat it as a soft 404. When there’s an equivalent live page, use a 301 redirect instead.

You can see the difference live:

• Personalized 404: cxl.com/blog/thisdoesnotexist/
• Standard 404: cxl.com/thisdoesnotexist/

When we launched the personalized page, we started tracking whether it reduced bounce rates on 404 sessions, increased navigation to related content, and helped AI-referred visitors continue browsing.

It’s early, but the logic holds: a visitor who arrived because an AI cited your site has more intent than a random bounce. They deserve a better landing.

How should you prioritize content opportunities from 404 data?

Start with an Ahrefs audit, identify the broken URLs that keep attracting relevant links, and group them into themes. Then validate those topics before creating new content, while improving the experience for anyone landing on the broken URLs.

1. Run the Ahrefs audit now. Site Explorer → Best by Links → filter for 404. Export everything. This takes 10 minutes and gives you a dataset you didn’t know existed.
2. Build the topic cluster map. Feed the spreadsheet into Claude or ChatGPT with the prompt above. Review the output critically—not all clusters will be content gaps. Tag the ones worth pursuing.
3. Prioritize by referring domain count. Topics with multiple AI-generated sources pointing to the same hallucinated URL are higher-priority signals. One hallucination is an anomaly. A cluster is a pattern.
4. Implement the conditional 404 rule. If your CMS supports URL-based logic, set it up now. This is low-effort and captures value from traffic you’re already getting. The personalized page doesn’t need to be sophisticated; it just needs to acknowledge the likely context and offer three or four relevant links.
5. Revisit the list quarterly. LLM behavior changes as models update. New hallucination patterns will emerge as AI assistants expand their topical coverage. This isn’t a one-time audit; it’s an ongoing signal worth monitoring.

Your 404 pages are smarter than your keyword research

Keyword tools tell you what people type into search boxes. Hallucinated URL patterns tell you what people expect sophisticated AI research tools to retrieve on their behalf.

That’s a different, and arguably richer, signal. It reflects higher-intent research behavior, more specific topical needs, and the implicit expectations that AI users have developed about what authoritative sites in your space should cover.

The irony is that AI hallucinations, widely treated as a credibility problem, are doing something useful: surfacing the gap between what your site is and what your audience expects it to be. That gap is your content roadmap.

You already have the data. It’s sitting in your 404 logs, waiting for an Ahrefs filter.

Frequently asked questions

Why do AI assistants generate links to pages that don’t exist?

AI assistants sometimes generate plausible URLs based on the patterns and topics associated with a website. An AI-generated article or answer might reference a page that sounds like it should exist, even though it never did. These invented URLs can create broken backlinks and send visitors to 404 pages, particularly when the links aren’t checked before publication.

How can you find AI-generated broken links pointing to your website?

In Ahrefs Site Explorer, open Best by links and filter the HTTP code to 404. This reveals broken pages that have incoming links. Review the referring pages, anchor text, and URL slugs to identify links that appear to come from AI-generated content. Separate those from genuine broken links, old pages, and mistyped URLs before analyzing them for content opportunities.

Can hallucinated AI citations help you find content gaps?

Yes. A hallucinated URL can suggest a topic that an AI-generated source expected your site to cover. When multiple referring pages link to similar nonexistent articles, those patterns can reveal potential gaps in your content. Group the topics, compare them with your existing pages, and check customer research and search demand before deciding which ideas deserve attention.

Should you redirect hallucinated URLs or create new content?

It depends on what already exists. If a hallucinated URL closely matches a real article, a 301 redirect can send visitors to the relevant page. If no equivalent exists, a personalized 404 page can direct visitors toward useful content. Create a new article when the topic represents a genuine gap that aligns with your audience and content strategy.

How do you know if a broken URL was hallucinated by AI?

Start by checking whether the page ever existed. Review your CMS, historical URLs, redirects, and the websites linking to it. Plausible article titles that were never published, particularly when linked from AI-generated content, can indicate hallucinations. Look for recurring patterns across multiple URLs rather than assuming every broken backlink was created by an AI tool.

What to do next

If you’re using hallucinated URLs to find content gaps, Alex Birkett’s Content strategy for LLM visibility and changing search habits course takes that research further. It covers identifying citation gaps, finding useful topics through customer research, and building a content strategy around AI search. For turning those ideas into pages that get cited, Steve Toth’s Optimize pages for AI search with GEO/AEO course covers AI visibility audits, comparison content, and closing gaps in how your brand appears in AI-generated answers.

Take it further