AI Overviews

What are AI Overviews?

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that Google shows at the top of some search results pages. A Gemini model writes a short answer to the query, drawing on pages from Google’s index, and shows links to supporting websites alongside or within the summary. They appear only for queries where Google’s systems judge a summary adds something to the classic results.

AI Overviews grew out of the Search Generative Experience (SGE), an opt-in experiment in Google’s Search Labs during 2023. Google launched AI Overviews for everyone in the United States in May 2024 and has since expanded them to many more countries and languages. They sit alongside the classic results, unlike AI Mode, which replaces the results page with a conversational answer.

To build an overview, Google may use query fan-out: running several related searches across subtopics and data sources, then combining what it finds. That is why an AI Overview can cite pages that don’t rank in the top 10 for the original query: they rank for one of the related sub-queries instead.

Google’s guidance is that there are no extra requirements or special optimisations needed to appear in AI Overviews. A page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Search with a snippet. Beyond that, the same things that help a page rank, and helpful, reliable content, decide whether it is used.

Why AI Overviews matter for SEO

AI Overviews sit above the organic results, so when one appears it takes attention that used to go to the top organic links. Many users read the summary and don’t click any result, which adds to zero-click searches. Pages cited in the overview get visibility and some clicks; pages ranking below it may get fewer clicks than their position suggests.

They also change what you should track. A ranking of position 2 means something different when an AI Overview sits above it. Knowing which of your keywords show an AI Overview, and whether your page is cited in it, explains changes in click-through rate that rankings alone don’t.

Clicks from AI Overviews are counted in Search Console’s Performance report under the Web search type, together with other Google Search clicks. Google has also been rolling out a separate generative AI report in Search Console that shows impressions in AI features.

How to get cited in AI Overviews

1. Find which of your target keywords trigger an AI Overview. Check the live SERP, or use a rank tracker that records SERP features.
2. Make sure the page you want cited is indexed and snippet-eligible: no noindex, no nosnippet, not blocked to Googlebot in robots.txt. Use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to confirm.
3. Answer the query directly and early on the page, then cover the related questions people ask next. Fan-out means Google looks for sources on subtopics, not only the head query.
4. Add specific, verifiable detail: numbers, steps, comparisons, first-hand experience. Generic text that repeats what ranks already gives Google no reason to cite you.
5. Strengthen the page’s ranking in the usual ways: internal links, backlinks and a good page experience.
6. Watch clicks and CTR for those keywords in Search Console, and see whether citation changes line up with traffic changes.

AI Overviews example

<!-- Stop Google using any text from this page in snippets or AI Overviews -->
<meta name="robots" content="nosnippet">

<!-- Or exclude just one part of the page -->
<p>Public intro text.</p>
<div data-nosnippet>Text you don’t want quoted.</div>