Google AI Overviews: how to get your site cited

AI Overviews are the summaries Google generates above the search results, with links to the sites it drew the information from. There's no button or special code that gets you in. You get cited when your page is indexed, answers the question clearly and shows you know the subject, which is what Google was asking for all along.

What they are and where they show up

Google launched AI Overviews in the United States in May 2024 and said at the time it expected to reach more than a billion people by the end of the year. On October 28, 2024, it announced the rollout to more than 100 countries and territories. The languages named in that announcement were English, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.

Romanian wasn't on that list. That doesn't mean you can ignore the topic. If you have customers abroad, a site in English, or you work with tourists, these summaries are already in front of them. And what you do for them today helps your regular search results anyway.

How the links in a summary look

In the October announcement, Google described two places where cited sites appear: a link panel on the right on desktop (with a mobile version opened by tapping site icons), and links placed directly in the summary text. Google says its testing showed more visits to the cited sites with this format, and that links in AI Overviews get more clicks than the same page would as a regular listing. Those are Google's numbers, not an independent study, so read them that way.

The practical takeaway: the summary points to a short list of sources. The question is how you get on that list.

What you can control

Google hasn't published a separate rulebook for AI Overviews. What it has is its guidance on helpful, people-first content, which applies to everything. A few of the questions it suggests asking about your own content:

• Does the page offer original information, analysis or first-hand experience?
• Is it clear the author has direct experience with the subject?
• Can visitors easily tell who wrote the page?
• Was it written to help someone, or mainly to attract search traffic?

For a small business, that means:

1. Answer first. If the page is titled "How long does it take to install an illuminated sign," the first paragraph gives the time and what it depends on. The explanation comes after.
2. Details only you know. The real steps in your workshop, the questions you get often, the mistakes you see customers make. Generic copy that looks like ten other sites has no reason to be cited.
3. Who's writing. A clear business name, a real About page, contact details. Google's guidance puts trust first.
4. The page can be found. If it isn't indexed, it can't be a source. Check in Search Console that it shows up and isn't blocked by mistake.

What isn't worth doing

Stuffing the page with short Q&A blocks written only for bots. Generating dozens of posts on the same topic. Looking for markup "tricks." Google's guidance asks outright whether a page was made mainly to attract search visits, and that's the signal you want to avoid.

If you don't want part of a page used as a search snippet, you have nosnippet and data-nosnippet. Use them carefully, since they also hide that text from the regular result snippet.

For local businesses

For searches like "restaurant with a terrace near me," the details from your Google Business Profile show up right next to the results. Correct hours, the right category, recent photos and replies to reviews remain the safest work you can do, with or without AI summaries. We wrote about this in our post on local SEO, and about the early days of AI search in our February 2024 post.

If you want to know where your site stands, our SEO and AI page lists what we check.