AI search
How do Google AI Overviews work?
Google AI Overviews summarize answers from Google's index and link to supporting pages. Here is what makes a page eligible and how to control it.
What AI Overviews are
AI Overviews are generated summaries that Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the pages that support them. They appear only on queries where Google's systems judge them useful, not on every search. The summary is built from pages in Google's own search index, and Google says AI Overviews may run several related searches across subtopics, which it calls query fan-out, to assemble a response.
Because the sources come from the same index as regular results, the work that makes a page eligible for Google Search is the work that makes it eligible here.
What makes a page eligible
Google's documentation says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews. To be shown as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet. In practice that means:
- Googlebot is not blocked in robots.txt, and the page returns a 200 status.
- The page is not marked noindex and has indexable text content.
- No nosnippet rule removes the page's text from snippets.
- The content is helpful and follows Google's spam policies, as for any search result.
No special markup is required. Google says there is no AI-specific structured data you need to add, and standard SEO best practices still apply.
Controlling how your content is used
AI Overviews follow the same controls as regular search snippets. Keep in mind that tightening them also shortens or removes your snippets in normal results.
- nosnippet
- A robots meta rule that stops Google showing a text snippet for the page and keeps its content from being used as direct input for AI Overviews.
- data-nosnippet
- An HTML attribute that excludes a specific part of a page from snippets.
- max-snippet
- A robots meta rule that limits how many characters Google may use in a snippet.
- noindex
- Removes the page from Google Search entirely, including AI Overviews.
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:160">
<p>Public summary. <span data-nosnippet>Text kept out of snippets.</span></p>Google-Extended does not control AI Overviews. It is a robots.txt token for Gemini model training and grounding, and Google says it does not affect inclusion or ranking in Google Search. Blocking it will not remove you from AI Overviews.
Measuring AI Overviews traffic
Search Console counts clicks and impressions from AI Overviews in the Performance report, under the Web search type, together with regular results. There is no separate filter or search type for them, so you cannot isolate AI Overview traffic there directly. Instead:
- Watch for queries where impressions hold or rise while clicks fall. An AI Overview answering on the results page is one possible cause.
- Check the live results for your important queries to see whether an AI Overview appears and which pages it links.
- Compare your page with the pages that are cited, to see what they cover that yours does not.
Put it to work
- Connect Search Console, Analytics 4 and Google Business ProfileWhat each Google connection adds to Nalza, and what Nalza does with the access.
- Share of AnswerHow often ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews cite you, prompt by prompt.
- Free auditCheck your homepage in about a minute and see a preliminary score with your top issues.
More in AI search
- What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?GEO is the practice of making your site easy for AI answer engines to find, quote and cite. Here is how it relates to SEO and where to start.
- How do AI answer engines choose their sources?AI answer engines retrieve pages from a search index or a live fetch, then write an answer from them. Here is what that means for getting cited.
- What is Share of Answer in AI search?Share of Answer measures how often AI engines cite or mention you across a fixed set of prompts. Here is how to define it, sample it and compare it.
- AI crawlers and robots.txt: what to allowTraining crawlers, search crawlers and user-triggered fetchers do different jobs. Here is how to allow AI search bots in robots.txt and block training.
- What is llms.txt and do you need one?llms.txt is a proposed Markdown file that gives language models a short map of your site. Here is how it is structured and what it can and cannot do.
- How to write content AI engines can citeAI engines quote passages that answer a question clearly and stand on their own. Here is how to structure, source and maintain content they can cite.