AI Overviews in Google: how your business can appear in them

An AI Overview is a summary that Google creates with AI and shows at the top of the search results. It answers the question directly in a few paragraphs or a bulleted list and links to the pages the answer is based on. In Swedish the feature is called AI-översikt.

AI Overviews do not appear on every search. They mainly show up for questions where a summary helps, for example "how", "what is" and comparisons between options. For searches such as "hairdresser Uppsala", Google usually shows the map and ordinary results instead.

A business can appear in an AI Overview in two ways: as a linked source, or by having its name mentioned in the text. This guide is about how that works and what you can influence yourself.

How AI Overviews work#

AI Overviews are built on Google's ordinary search index. Google fetches pages that are relevant to the question, has a language model summarise them and shows links to the pages next to or below the text.

That has two practical consequences:

1. The page has to be indexed. A page that is not in Google's index cannot become a source.
2. The page has to be allowed to show with a snippet. Google uses the same rules as for the short text snippets in ordinary search results. If the page may not be shown with a snippet, it cannot be used in an AI Overview.

Google states in its documentation that there are no additional technical requirements for appearing in AI Overviews. You need no special markup, no special file and no AI-adapted format. The same basic SEO that applies to ordinary search results applies here.

If you are unsure about the basics, start with our guide to what SEO is.

Check the technical foundation first#

Since AI Overviews are built on the index, the technical work is the same as for ordinary visibility:

• The page is not blocked in robots.txt.
• The page does not have noindex.
• The content is in the HTML or is rendered so that Google can read it.
• The page returns status code 200 and loads without errors.
• Internal links lead to the page.

Check indexing in Google Search Console under Pages. Our guide to technical SEO goes through the whole checklist, and in our guide to Google Search Console we show how to find indexing problems.

How to improve your chances of being cited#

Nobody can control which sources Google chooses. What you can do is write content that is easy for both people and Google's systems to use as an answer.

Answer the question directly

Put the answer at the start of the page or at the start of the section. If someone searches for "how much does a website cost", the first paragraph should say what affects the price, not start with the company's history. A short, self-contained paragraph of two to four sentences that can be read without context is easier to reuse than an answer spread across the whole page.

Use clear headings

Headings phrased as questions or clear topics ("How long does it take?", "Difference between X and Y") make it easy to see which section answers what. Keep one heading level per topic and do not jump between levels.

Contribute first-hand information

Google says in its guidelines that it wants to show content that is helpful and written for people. What you know from your own work is hard for others to copy: how a project actually went, which questions customers ask, what tends to go wrong and how you solve it. Content like that has value of its own compared with text that summarises other pages.

Be concrete

Spell out names, places, timeframes, steps and conditions. "We build websites in Next.js and deliver them with a CMS where you edit the texts yourself" says more than "we create modern digital solutions", and a sentence like that can be reproduced accurately in a summary.

Keep the content up to date

Update pages when something changes: prices, rules, opening hours, offers. Out-of-date information damages the visitor's trust even if the page is visible.

Use structured data that mirrors the page

Structured data (Schema.org in JSON-LD) helps Google understand what the page is about, for example that it is an article, a business or a list of frequently asked questions. It is not a requirement for AI Overviews, and the structured data should always describe what is actually visible on the page. Marking up content the visitor cannot see breaks Google's guidelines.

Want to automate more? Read about AI solutions →

What happens to clicks?#

When the answer is right there in the search results, some searchers do not need to click through. This mainly applies to simple factual questions where the AI Overview is enough of an answer. So the number of clicks can drop for such searches, even if your page appears as a source.

At the same time, a link in an AI Overview can bring visits from people who have read the summary and want to know more. They have already had the basics explained and are looking for details, a supplier or a next step.

This means you should think about two types of content:

• Informational content (guides, explanations) that can be cited and build awareness of the business, but may get fewer clicks than before.
• Commercial pages (service pages, contact pages, local pages) where the visitor is about to make a decision. There it is important that the page says clearly what you offer, for whom and how to get in touch.

How to follow up#

Google Search Console does not report AI Overviews separately. Impressions and clicks from AI Overviews are included in the ordinary performance report for web search, and you cannot filter them out.

So you have to judge the effect indirectly:

1. Compare impressions and clicks over time. If impressions hold steady but clicks fall for certain queries, it may be because an AI Overview answers the question directly.
2. Search for your most important questions yourself. See whether an AI Overview appears and which sources are linked. Results vary between searches and users, so repeat the check on different occasions.
3. Measure what matters for the business. The number of enquiries, calls and bookings from organic search says more than clicks. Follow them up in your analytics tool or CRM.
4. Ask new customers how they found you. A field in the contact form or a question in the first call captures sources that the statistics miss.

Can I stop Google from using my page?#

Yes. With nosnippet in a robots meta tag you stop Google from showing text snippets from the page. This applies to both ordinary search results and AI Overviews. With the data-nosnippet attribute you can exclude individual parts of a page, and with max-snippet you can limit the snippet's length.

<meta name="robots" content="nosnippet">

Consider what it costs. A page without a snippet is shown with a poorer presentation in ordinary search results and cannot become a source in AI Overviews. For most businesses it is better to appear in both than to switch off snippets.

Blocking Google's AI training with Google-Extended in robots.txt does not affect AI Overviews. AI Overviews are governed by the same rules as Google's ordinary search.

How Solva helps#

We work with AI search optimisation as part of our SEO. That means we go through the technical foundation, see which of your most important questions get AI Overviews today and write or rework content so that it clearly answers what your customers are searching for. We follow up with data from Search Console and the enquiries that actually come in. Read more about our SEO service or get in touch and we will look at your site.