Google AI Overviews and AI Mode: how to get your site cited

AI Overviews are the summaries Google writes with AI and places above the usual results for some searches, with links to the pages it used. AI Mode is the conversational version: you ask, get a longer answer and keep asking. In the UK, AI Overviews have appeared since 15 August 2024 and AI Mode since 28 July 2025, and in July 2026 Google said AI Mode had passed 1 billion monthly users worldwide.

For a small business, the short version is reassuring. There is no form to fill in and no special code to add: Google takes the links from its ordinary index. Getting cited is mostly SEO done properly, pages that answer questions plainly and a name that other sites mention.

Marketing is full of shiny new practices, and AI search has produced plenty of them. My advice is the one I give for any new channel: fix what you already have before you buy anything. Below is what Google says about how the links are chosen, what you can do this month, how to measure it and how to opt out. This guide is part of my complete guide to generative engine optimisation, which also covers ChatGPT, Perplexity and the other assistants.

What AI Overviews and AI Mode are

An AI Overview is a short answer generated by Google’s Gemini models, shown at the top of the results page with links to its sources. AI Mode is a separate mode of Google Search, opened from its own tab, that answers in a conversation and remembers your earlier questions.

Since January 2026, a follow-up question asked under an AI Overview continues in AI Mode, so the two now work as one path: a quick summary first, then a conversation for people who want more.

Both can use what Google calls query fan-out. Instead of running your search once, Google runs several related searches on the sub-topics of the question, then writes the answer from what comes back. A page can be cited for a question it was not written for, because it answers one of those sub-questions well.

How Google chooses the sources it cites

Google sets one technical condition. To appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet, and there are no additional technical requirements (Google Search Central).

In May 2026, Google published a guide to optimising for its generative AI features, and its message is blunt: optimising for AI search “is still SEO”. The guide lists what Google Search does not need and ignores: an llms.txt file, content cut into chunks, text rewritten for AI and special schema (Google’s guide).

So the choice rests on the usual signals: whether Google can crawl and understand the page, whether it answers the question better than the alternatives, and whether the site is trusted. Reputation weighs heavily. In an Ahrefs study of 75,000 brands, the number of web pages mentioning a brand was the factor most closely linked to visibility in AI Overviews (a correlation of 0.664), ahead of links using the brand name (0.527) and searches for the brand name (0.392). A correlation does not prove that mentions cause citations, but it is a strong hint that what other sites say about you matters.

How to get your site cited in AI Overviews: seven steps

1. Check that your key pages are indexed

A page that is not indexed cannot be cited, however good it is. In Search Console, paste the address of each important page into the URL Inspection bar at the top and read the verdict. My Google Search Console tutorial shows each screen.

2. Let Google show a snippet

A nosnippet robots meta tag keeps a page out of AI Overviews and AI Mode, along with its description in the normal results. A data-nosnippet attribute on a block of text, or a very low max-snippet value, limits what Google may quote. A noindex tag keeps the page out of Google altogether, and a robots.txt rule that blocks Googlebot stops Google from reading the page, so there is nothing to quote. Plugins and developers sometimes add these and forget them, so check the source code of your main pages.

3. Put the answer in the first lines

Under a heading that asks the question in your customers’ words, answer it in two or three sentences, then give the detail. Define terms in one sentence, date your figures, and name real areas, price ranges and lead times. The “Short answer” box at the top of this page follows that pattern. My tutorial on how to write content for AI search shows how to rewrite a page this way.

4. Give each service its own page

I learned this with a client who has several websites. The one that offered a long list of different services never brought anything: it was too broad. The one that ranked sells a few very specific services, so Google could tell exactly which searches it answered.

The platform matters less than people think. Squarespace is a closed platform and custom-coded sites can have an edge, yet a Squarespace site I built for Pilotech ranks first or second on Google, with the titles, descriptions and keywords done right. For the same client, one ranking came within a day or two, which is unusually fast: it normally takes much longer. The full story is in my SEO case study.

5. Say what nobody else can say

A summary built from several sources has no reason to pick a page that repeats what ten others say. Your real price ranges, the areas you cover, your lead times, photos of your own work and the questions customers actually ask you are things a competitor cannot copy. To find those questions, I use AI deep research to see what people complain about most in a niche and which words keep coming back. Answer those complaints on your pages, in your customers’ words.

6. Use structured data for what it does

Structured data (schema markup) helps Google read your business details: name, address, phone number and opening hours. It is worth having, but Google says AI features need no special schema, and in a test Ahrefs published in May 2026, adding JSON-LD to 1,885 pages, compared with 4,000 pages left alone, brought no meaningful rise in AI citations. My guide to schema markup for small businesses covers the types still worth adding.

7. Get mentioned beyond your own site

Given the Ahrefs correlation, the most useful work outside your site is being talked about: a complete Google Business Profile with genuine reviews, the directories of your trade, your local paper, partners who mention you. Mentions have to be earned: Google’s guide lists inauthentic mentions among the myths of AI search, so paying for planted ones is no shortcut.

Press is within reach too. I am no PR specialist and barely tried, yet a short, well-targeted pitch got a friend into a national French magazine. You do not need followers, just something worth writing about. Start local, then regional, then national.

What happens to your clicks

People click less when a summary answers them. In a 2025 study, Pew Research Center analysed the browsing of US adults: when a search showed an AI summary, they clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits, against 15% without one, and clicked a link inside the summary in 1% of visits (Pew Research Center).

I read this in two ways. Simple informational searches will send you fewer visits, and no tactic changes that. But a citation still puts your name in front of someone with your customers’ problem, so make the next step obvious on the cited page: business name, area covered, a phone number and a short form. In my cold email campaigns, many prospects called rather than replied, because a call is quicker. Someone who has just read your name in a summary is in the same hurry.

Visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode arrive in Google Analytics as ordinary organic traffic from Google. GA4’s AI Assistant channel, added in May 2026, leaves them out, so do not look for them there. My tutorial on how to track AI traffic in GA4 explains what each tool can and cannot see.

How to check whether Google cites your site

Search Console now has generative AI performance reports: one for Search, which covers AI Overviews and AI Mode, and one for generative AI in Discover. Google announced them on 3 June 2026 and they reached all sites on 31 August 2026. They show impressions only: no clicks, no click-through rate, no position and no queries. You can filter by page, country, device and date, which is enough to see which of your pages Google uses.

Impressions and clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode also count in the Web search type of the main Performance report, mixed with ordinary results, so do not add the two reports together.

Since these reports show no queries, keep a manual check alongside them. Write down the ten questions your customers ask most, search them once a month in a private window, and note which sites are cited. Use exactly the same wording each month, otherwise you are comparing different answers. Answers also change from one search to the next, so treat each check as a snapshot, not a ranking.

Can you keep your site out of AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Yes. In June 2026 Google started rolling out a section called Search generative AI in the Settings of Search Console. It offers two choices for the property: include, the default, or exclude. Excluding removes the site from AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI in Discover. Google says the choice is not a ranking signal, so your normal results stay as they are, and a change takes a few days to apply (Search Console Help).

The older method works page by page: a nosnippet tag keeps a page out of AI features, but it also removes its description from the normal results, which costs clicks.

For a business that wants customers, I would not exclude anything. The setting makes sense for publishers whose articles are the product and who want readers on their own pages. A plumber, an architect or an accountant gains from being named in the answer.

A one-hour checklist for this month

1. Inspect your five most important pages in Search Console and fix any that are not indexed.
2. Check their source code for a noindex or nosnippet you did not choose.
3. Open the generative AI report for Search and note which pages already get impressions.
4. Search your customers’ ten most common questions in a private window and note who is cited.
5. Rewrite the first sentences under the main heading of your two most important pages so they answer the question directly.
6. Update your Google Business Profile and ask your three most recent customers for a review. Ask them all, not only the happy ones: Google’s review policy forbids selectively asking for positive reviews.
7. Put a reminder in your calendar to repeat step 4 next month, with the same questions.

None of this needs a new tool or a GEO package. If someone sells you AI search optimisation as something entirely new, read my view on GEO vs SEO first. If you would rather hand it over, the same work sits at the heart of my SEO service: a page that answers each search that matters, then the proof around it.