How to Optimise for AI Overviews

TL;DR

• Optimising for AI Overviews is SEO. Google's July 2026 guide says AI Overviews are rooted in its core ranking and quality systems.
• A page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet, and your site must stay included in Search generative AI features in Search Console.
• Skip the hacks. Google lists llms.txt, content chunking, special schema and writing for AI as unnecessary.

Optimising for AI Overviews means doing SEO well, and Google's July 2026 guide says so. The pages Google cites are the pages it already trusts to rank. Our own site shows it: in three months, links to studiohawk.com.au appeared about 727,000 times in AI Overviews and AI Mode, led by our service pages.

That changes where your effort goes. The old checklist of AI-specific tricks is mostly noise, and Google now lists several of them as things to skip. What works is a page Google can show, an answer worth quoting, and a brand other sites vouch for.

In this guide

• What Are AI Overviews, and What Changed in 2026?
• How Does Google Choose the Pages in an AI Overview?
• How to Optimise for AI Overviews: Seven Steps
• What Should You Skip?
• How Do You Check if You Appear in AI Overviews?
• Do AI Overviews Still Send Clicks?
• How Are AI Overviews Different From AI Mode?
• The Experience Behind This Guide
• FAQ
• Sources

What Are AI Overviews, and What Changed in 2026?

AI Overviews are the AI-written answers Google shows above its classic results, with links to the pages the answer draws on. Google unveiled them as the Search Generative Experience in May 2023, renamed them AI Overviews in May 2024, and expanded them to more than 100 countries in October 2024. Wikipedia keeps a dated history of AI Overviews, including the early errors and the legal challenges. Read it for the full story.

Here is one in Australia today. Search "what is ai seo" on google.com.au and the AI Overview defines it, cites StudioHawk first, and our guide ranks first underneath.

An AI Overview in October 2026: StudioHawk cited first for what is ai seo.

The last four months moved quickly. The table lists each change, its date and whether it applies in Australia.

Two of these matter more than the rest. First, AI Overviews now reach the searches that make money: Search Engine Land's coverage of the Semrush study reports AI Overviews on 96% of "best X for Y" queries on US desktop. Second, the traffic loss has reached the biggest sites. Reddit is testing a login-only site after its Google referrals fell.

We found no published study of how often AI Overviews appear in Australian results, and US figures are a poor guide here. Google's selection process is clearer, because Google has documented it.

How Does Google Choose the Pages in an AI Overview?

Google chooses the pages in an AI Overview with the same core ranking and quality systems it uses for classic results. Google's guide adds two conditions a page must meet first, and one step that widens the search:

1. The page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet. A page blocked from crawling, missing from the index or marked nosnippet is out of the running.
2. The site must be included in Search generative AI features in Search Console. Inclusion is the default.
3. The model runs a query fan-out. It generates a set of related queries at the same time, searches for each, and builds the answer from the best results. Your page can earn a citation for a follow-up question the model asked on the searcher's behalf.

The fan-out point carries a warning that most guides miss. Google says that creating extra pages mainly to influence rankings or AI answers "violates Google's scaled content abuse spam policy". One strong page that covers the follow-up questions beats ten thin pages written for each one. Depth beats volume.

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Those conditions turn into a short list of work, and the work is mostly SEO.

How to Optimise for AI Overviews: Seven Steps

These are the seven steps we use to get pages cited in AI Overviews, in the order we check them. Each one maps to something Google has said publicly.

1. Make sure the page can be shown

Start here. Check that the page is indexed, carries no nosnippet or restrictive max-snippet rule, and returns a 200 status. In Search Console, open Settings and confirm the site is still included in Search generative AI features. A page that fails any of these checks is invisible to AI Overviews, however good it is.

2. State the answer plainly and early

Put the direct answer in the first sentence under each question heading, then expand. This is ordinary good writing: it serves the reader who skims and the model building an answer. Google's guide calls a special style for AI unnecessary. Answer-first is the same structure that has won featured snippets for a decade.

3. Cover the follow-up questions on one page

List the questions a searcher asks next, then answer them on the same page. Google's own "People also ask" box and your Search Console queries show what they are. Keep them on one page, because a page per question built to sway rankings is the scaled content pattern Google warns against. One page, many answers.

4. Show experience and first-party evidence

Google's guide asks for "unique, valuable" content. The fastest way to get there is evidence only you have: client results, your own data, real screenshots.

5. Earn mentions beyond your own site

AI Overviews draw on far more than your website. Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands and found that branded web mentions correlate with AI Overview visibility at 0.656, against 0.326 for Domain Rating. Digital PR is the most reliable way to earn those mentions. YouTube and Reddit are the two most cited domains in US AI Overviews (Ahrefs Brand Radar, September 2026).

6. Keep the facts current

Update a page when its facts change, and say what changed. Freshness alone is a weaker lever than some guides claim: Ahrefs found that AI Overviews cite pages slightly older on average than the classic results. Every other AI surface in the study cited newer pages. Accuracy is the reason to update. An out-of-date answer loses trust, and in AI search that costs the citation.

7. Get the technical basics right

Make sure pages are crawlable, load fast, and follow JavaScript SEO best practice so the main content renders. Google's guide lists crawlability, page experience and JavaScript SEO as the technical work that applies. Clean fundamentals matter too. In our own study of over 1,700 client websites, pages with descriptive URLs earned about 13 times more AI referral sessions per page. Local businesses should also keep their Google Business Profile complete, and retailers should keep their Merchant Center feeds current. Google says both can help a business show in AI responses. Our technical SEO team runs these checks as standard.

Seven steps is a short list, and most of it is SEO you may already be doing. The other list is the one Google tells you to ignore.

What Should You Skip?

Skip the five things Google lists as unnecessary: llms.txt and other AI files, chunking content into tiny pieces, special schema, writing specially for AI, and chasing inauthentic mentions. Google's guide calls these out by name.

The last row is the one we would underline. We tested it: we set up a listicle for a made-up business, naming it the best in its category. It was cited in AI Overviews within days, and in ChatGPT sources within a few weeks. A trick that works that fast is a trick Google will close, and Google's spam updates in August and September 2026 already show it moving. Build on what lasts.

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If you do the work and skip the hacks, the next question is how you check it is paying off.

How Do You Check if You Appear in AI Overviews?

Check AI Overviews visibility three ways: search by hand, read Search Console's Generative AI performance report, and track a fixed set of prompts in an AI visibility tool. We use all three, because each covers a gap in the others.

1. A manual check. Search your priority queries in a private window, set to an Australian location, and note whether an AI Overview appears and which sites it cites. It is slow, and it shows you what a searcher sees.
2. Search Console. The Generative AI performance report shows how often links to your site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device and date. It shows impressions only, with no clicks, positions or queries, and it combines AI Overviews with AI Mode.
3. Peec AI. We track a fixed set of prompts in Peec AI every week. Google AI Overviews is one of the platforms it covers, so we can see which brands are named and which sources are cited.

Here is the report on our own Australian site. In the three months to 28 October 2026, links to studiohawk.com.au appeared about 727,000 times in AI Overviews and AI Mode, across 562 pages. Our service pages lead, which tells us AI answers draw on commercial pages as well as blog posts.

Search Console now shows AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions, but no clicks.

Impressions are the number you can measure today. Clicks are harder, and they are the question every client asks next.

Do AI Overviews Still Send Clicks?

Searches that show an AI Overview send fewer clicks, so judge them on visibility first. Pew Research Center tracked the browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025. When an AI summary appeared, people clicked a classic result on 8% of visits, against 15% when none appeared. The gap is wide. They clicked a link inside the summary on 1% of visits.

We have watched the same pattern across our clients.

"Positions improved, clicks went down. The rankings were stable and growing, and the AI Overview was just being given above them."

Lawrence Hitches, Chief of Staff, StudioHawk

Three things follow from that:

• Judge informational pages on visibility as well as clicks. A citation at the top of the answer is a win, even when the reader stays on Google.
• Put your effort where someone still has to click. Comparisons, product pages, tools and anything with a decision at the end still earn the visit.
• Track the brand as well as the page. Ahrefs' brand study found that the brands AI Overviews name overlap heavily with those AI Mode names (correlation 0.821), so a brand named in one tends to be named in the other.

That overlap is the reason AI Mode belongs in the same plan.

How Are AI Overviews Different From AI Mode?

AI Overviews sit on the normal results page and answer one query, while AI Mode is a separate, conversational search where people ask follow-up questions. Both run on the same core systems, use query fan-out, and appear together in Search Console's Generative AI performance report. Both reward the same work.

The practical difference is depth. AI Mode answers longer, multi-step questions. Google also tests new features there first, and many launch in the US only. Our AI SEO services cover both, because the work underneath is the same. That work comes from client campaigns.

The Experience Behind This Guide

The seven steps come from client work, and two campaigns show what they produce in AI search.

• Cooper & Co: we rebuilt collection pages, metadata and product schema while digital PR built authority. AI referral sessions grew 931% year on year, from 759 to 7,825, and the brand now earns 97 mentions in AI Overviews. Read the Cooper & Co case study.
• Genea Fertility: a digital PR story built on Genea's own donor data earned 44 pieces of national, regional and international coverage. Genea's placements in Google's AI Overviews grew from 89 to 191. Read the Genea Fertility case study.

Both campaigns put the foundations first, and AI visibility followed. StudioHawk won Best Global Large SEO Agency at the 2021 Global Search Awards. Our team of 120 specialists works on AI search across Australia, the UK and the US. For the bigger picture, our guide to what GEO is explains why we treat it as SEO, and what AI SEO is covers the wider service.

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FAQ

How do you rank in AI Overviews?

You rank in AI Overviews by ranking well in Google. Google says AI Overviews are rooted in its core ranking systems, so the page must be indexed, eligible for a snippet and strong enough to rank for the query or one of its fan-out queries. Then make the answer easy to quote and earn mentions beyond your site.

Do I need schema to appear in AI Overviews?

Schema is optional for appearing in AI Overviews. Google's guide lists structured data as unnecessary for generative AI search. Keep using it where it earns a rich result, such as products or reviews.

Can I opt out of AI Overviews?

You can opt out of AI Overviews with the Search generative AI control in Search Console settings, live for all sites since 31 August 2026. It also removes the site from AI Mode. Google says the setting leaves rankings in the rest of Search unchanged. Think carefully before you use it: an opted-out site gives up its citations in the answer at the top of the page.

How long does it take to appear in AI Overviews?

The time to appear in AI Overviews depends on how fast Google crawls, indexes and ranks the page. There is no separate queue. A page that already ranks can be cited within days of an update; a new page on a new site takes as long as normal SEO does.

Are AI Overviews available in Australia?

AI Overviews are available in Australia. Google expanded them to more than 100 countries in October 2024, and Australian searchers see them in English. Newer features often launch in the US first, so check the country before you plan around one.

Download our AI search whitepaper for SOURC-E, the six-pillar framework we use to plan AI search work.

Sources

• Google Search Central, "Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search", last updated 10 Jul 2026
• Google Search Console Help, Generative AI performance report ("As of August 31, 2026, we've rolled out these insights to all websites worldwide")
• Google Search Console Help, Search generative AI control
• Google, "AI Overviews in Search are coming to more places around the world", 28 Oct 2024
• Google, updates to AI Mode and AI Overviews links, 15 Oct 2026
• Google, ads in AI Mode expansion, 28 Oct 2026
• Search Engine Land, Google dynamically expanding AI Overviews, Aug 2026
• Semrush, "AI Overviews have nearly doubled across five commercial search modifiers", 22 Oct 2026, via Search Engine Land
• Search Engine Journal, Reddit to test login-only mode, Oct 2026
• Pew Research Center, "Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results", 22 Jul 2025
• StudioHawk case studies, read 31 Oct 2026: Cooper & Co and Genea Fertility
• Ahrefs, brand visibility factors (75,000 brands), 12 Dec 2025
• Ahrefs, AI assistants and fresh content (17 million citations), 28 Jul 2025
• Ahrefs, most-cited domains in AI Overviews, September 2026 snapshot
• Wikipedia, AI Overviews (last edited 28 Oct 2026)
• Google Search, "what is ai seo" on google.com.au, signed out, captured 31 Oct 2026 (AI Overview example)
• Google Search Console, Generative AI features report, studiohawk.com.au property, 29 Jul to 28 Oct 2026, captured 31 Oct 2026 (727K impressions, 562 pages)