Google is pushing citations higher in AI answers: good news if you’re the source
With the recent changes Google announced to the AI Mode and AI Overviews, links in responses will now appear more often and closer to the top.
Driving the news: According to a blog post by VP of Product, Hema Budaraju, there will be five changes to the way links in AI Mode and AI Overviews responses will be displayed.
What’s changing:
- More and higher inline links. Google stated it has “made continued and substantial increases to the presence of inline links.”
- A test to display links to official sites at the top of responses for a specific task.
- More and wider availability of ‘timely articles’ carousels, which are displayed based on a user’s Preferred Sources, across more locations and languages.
- Testing of creator and publisher names for videos in AI Mode, which will link to Search profiles.
The catch: While Google mentioned directions in which it was increasing the presence of inline links, it didn’t mention how much.
Why it matters: With more obvious citations, the difference between being used by a model and being cited by it lessens. The citation space is becoming more valuable, and being a user’s Preferred Source means it has the opportunity to be cited multiple times by that user.
The bottom line: While Google already rewards what the data shows wins, i.e. being the obvious, authoritative, well-structured source for a query, it is now making that reward more apparent.
