AI Overviews and AI Mode: What They Mean for SEO

Search for something on Google today and there is a good chance the first thing you see is not a list of links. It is a written answer made by AI, with a few small links tucked beside it. So a lot of beginners ask me: “If Google answers the question itself, does SEO still work? And how do I get my page into that AI box?”

Those are fair questions. In this lesson, I will explain what AI Overviews and AI Mode are, how Google picks the pages it links to, what you can and can’t control, and how to see their effect in your data. By the end, you will know exactly what to check on your own site, and you will also know which “AI SEO tricks” you can safely ignore.

If you skipped the earlier lesson on understanding the search results page, I suggest a quick look first. AI Overviews are one more feature on that page, so the basics there will help.

What are AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Both are Google Search features that use AI to write an answer and show supporting links next to it. They look similar, but they do different jobs.

AI Overviews appear at the top of a normal results page for some searches. They give a short summary of a topic and link out to pages where you can learn more. Google says they show only when its systems decide the summary adds something useful beyond the classic results, so many searches don’t get one at all.
AI Mode is a separate, more conversational search experience. You can ask longer questions, compare options and ask follow-up questions, a bit like chatting with an assistant that searches Google for you.

Google also notes that the two features may use different AI models. That is why the links you see in an AI Overview and in AI Mode for the same question are often not the same.

Here is a simple way to think about it. A classic results page is like a library catalog: it hands you a list of books. An AI Overview is like a librarian who gives you a two-minute answer and then points to three books on the shelf. AI Mode is like sitting down with that librarian for a longer chat.

	Classic results	AI Overviews	AI Mode
Where it shows	The normal results page	Top of the normal results page, for some searches only	Its own tab or experience
What the user gets	A list of pages to choose from	A short AI summary with supporting links	A longer, conversational answer with links and follow-ups
Best for	Quick navigation and simple lookups	Getting the gist of a topic fast	Complex questions, comparisons and planning
How your page appears	As a ranked result with a title and snippet	As one of the linked sources	As one of the linked sources, often among many

How does Google choose which pages to link?

This is the part most people find confusing, so let me explain it slowly. The AI does not invent a list of websites. It works on top of Google Search. That means it uses the same index, the giant library of pages Google has already crawled and stored, which you learned about in the lesson on how search engines work.

Query fan-out: one question becomes many searches

Google says both AI Overviews and AI Mode may use a technique called query fan-out. In plain words, the system takes your one question and quietly runs several related searches across subtopics. Then it brings the results together into one answer.

Here is an invented example. Someone asks AI Mode: “Is a heat pump worth it for a small house in a cold climate?” Behind the scenes, the system might look for things like:

how heat pumps perform in very cold weather
running costs of a heat pump compared with a gas boiler
installation cost for a small home
government rebates for heat pumps

Each of those sub-searches can pull in different pages. Google says this helps the AI features show a wider and more varied set of links than a classic search. For you, this is good news. A small site that explains one sub-question really well, such as cold-weather performance, can be linked even if a big brand wins the main query. I go deeper on this idea in my guide to covering the sub-questions AI Mode searches for.

The two basic requirements

Google’s documentation is short and clear here. To be eligible as a supporting link, a page must be:

Indexed by Google, meaning it is stored in Google’s index.
Eligible to be shown with a snippet, meaning you haven’t blocked Google from showing a text preview of it.

That’s it. Google states there are no additional technical requirements. And, as always, meeting the requirements doesn’t guarantee that Google will crawl, index or show your page.

Do you need to do anything special for AI features?

Here is the honest answer: no special tricks. Google says plainly that there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special optimizations are needed. It also says you don’t need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special schema markup.

What Google recommends instead are the same SEO basics this course has been teaching you:

Let Google crawl your pages. Don’t block important content in robots.txt.
Make pages easy to find through internal links.
Give visitors a good page experience.
Put your important content in text, not only inside images or videos.
If you use structured data, make sure it matches what people can actually see on the page.

And of course, write genuinely useful content. Everything in the lessons on helpful, people-first content and E-E-A-T applies here even more, because the AI is trying to pull out clear, trustworthy answers.

Writing pages that are easy to quote

While there is no secret formula, some writing habits make it easier for any system, human or AI, to understand what a page says. I suggest these:

Answer the main question near the top, in one or two plain sentences.
Use clear headings that match the questions people ask.
Keep each section focused on one idea, so it makes sense even if read on its own.
Include specific facts, steps and examples instead of vague claims.

These are not “AI hacks”. They are simply good writing, and they help your human readers just as much. If you want more on this, read my post on how to get your content cited in Google AI Overviews.

What control do you have over your content in AI answers?

Some site owners don’t want Google to quote their content at all. Others want to limit how much is shown. Google gives you the same controls it gives for normal search snippets. Let me put them in a table, because people often mix them up.

Control	What it does	Side effect to know
`nosnippet`	Stops Google showing any text snippet from the page	The page also can’t be used as a supporting link in AI features
`data-nosnippet`	Hides a specific part of a page from snippets	Only that part is held back
`max-snippet`	Limits how many characters Google can show	Shorter previews in normal results too
`noindex`	Keeps the page out of Google’s index	The page disappears from Search completely
Google-Extended (robots.txt)	Controls use of your content for training Gemini models and grounding in some other Google products	Google says it does not affect inclusion or ranking in Google Search

In brief, there is no switch that says “show me in normal results but never in AI Overviews” without also limiting your snippets. For most businesses, I suggest leaving these controls alone. Being linked as a source is usually worth more than staying out. If you do add a control and your content still appears, Google suggests checking the tag with the URL Inspection tool and giving it time to recrawl the page.

How do AI features show up in Search Console?

This matters, because you can’t improve what you can’t measure. Google counts AI Overview and AI Mode appearances inside the normal Performance report in Search Console, under the “Web” search type. There is no separate AI tab. You will learn the report itself in the lesson on Google Search Console for beginners, but here is how the counting works:

Clicks: clicking a link to an outside page in an AI Overview or in AI Mode counts as a click.
Impressions: the normal impression rules apply. If your link was shown, it can count as an impression.
Position in AI Overviews: the whole AI Overview takes up a single position on the results page. Every link inside it shares that one position.
Position in AI Mode: it follows the same method as a normal results page.
Follow-up questions in AI Mode: each follow-up counts as a new query.

Google also says that AI experiments in Search Labs are left out of this data, because they are still being developed.

What about clicks?

This is the worry I hear most. When the answer is right there on the page, some people won’t click at all. These are often called “zero-click” searches, and I have written about them in my post on what zero-click searches mean for your marketing.

Google’s own position is that people who click through from pages with AI Overviews tend to be more engaged, and it describes these as “higher quality” clicks. That is Google’s claim, so test it on your own site. The fair way to judge is to look at both sides: did clicks change, and did the visitors who came do more, such as fill in a form or buy? Google itself suggests pairing Search Console with a tool like Google Analytics to track that, which we cover in the lesson on Google Analytics 4 for SEO.

One pattern to watch for: your average position stays about the same, impressions hold steady, but clicks fall. That can mean an AI feature is answering the question before people reach your link. I explain how to read this in ranking loss or AI Overview CTR loss.

Try it: check how AI features treat three of your topics

Let’s make this practical. Set aside about 30 minutes and follow these steps.

Pick three questions your customers really ask. For example, a dentist might pick “how long does teeth whitening last”.
Search each one on Google in a private browser window. Note whether an AI Overview appears and which sites it links to.
Try the same question in AI Mode. Again, note the linked sources. Are they the same as the AI Overview? Usually not.
List the sub-questions the answer covers. These hint at the fan-out searches. Does your page answer each one clearly?
Check your page is eligible. Use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to confirm it is indexed, and make sure you are not using nosnippet by mistake.
Look at the Performance report for that page over the last few months. Note clicks, impressions and click-through rate (the share of impressions that turned into clicks).
Improve one page. Add a clear, direct answer near the top and a short section for any sub-question you missed.

Write down what you found. Results in AI features change often, so a simple note with the date helps you compare later.

Questions beginners ask about AI Overviews and AI Mode

Do I need special schema markup or an AI file to appear in AI Overviews?

No. Google says there are no extra requirements and no special optimizations for AI Overviews or AI Mode. You don’t need new machine-readable files or special schema. Normal structured data still helps Google understand your page, as long as it matches the visible text.

Can I see AI Overview traffic separately in Search Console?

Not as its own report. Google counts AI Overview and AI Mode clicks and impressions inside the normal Performance report, under the Web search type. You can look for patterns, such as stable impressions with falling clicks, but there is no simple AI-only filter.

Will blocking Google-Extended keep my site out of AI Overviews?

Google-Extended controls whether your content can be used for training Gemini models and for grounding in some other Google products. Google says it does not affect inclusion in Google Search. To limit what Search shows from your pages, Google points to snippet controls such as nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex.

Does a page need to rank on page one to be linked in an AI Overview?

Not necessarily. Because AI features can run several related searches behind the scenes, a page that ranks for a sub-question can be linked even if it isn’t in the top results for the main query. What it must be is indexed and eligible to show with a snippet.

Where AI Overviews leave your SEO plan

Let me sum up. AI Overviews and AI Mode are AI answers built on top of Google Search. They may run several related searches through query fan-out, and they link to pages that are indexed and eligible for a snippet. Google says there is nothing special to add, so strong SEO basics and genuinely helpful content remain your best plan. Their clicks and impressions sit inside the normal Search Console Performance report, so watch your click-through rate, not only your rankings.

Google isn’t the only place people ask AI for answers. In the next lesson, we look at SEO for ChatGPT, Perplexity and other AI assistants, and how those tools find and cite websites. If you would like help with how AI search is affecting your own traffic, you can always ask us for a free quote.

Sources for this lesson on AI Overviews and AI Mode

AI features and your website — Google Search Central
How Search Console performance data is counted — Search Console Help
Performance report (Search results) — Search Console Help
Google’s common crawlers (including Google-Extended) — Google Search Central