The Effect of Google AI Overview on SEO and What You Can Do

Understanding the Google AI Overview on SEO starts with recognizing how search itself is evolving. As Google integrates more AI into its core products, businesses need to stay informed. In the blog, you'll find practical insights and considerations to help you navigate this shift with clarity and confidence.

What are AI Overviews?

Introduced in 2024, Google’s AI Overviews or AIO, is one of Google’s latest search features that uses AI to generate summaries or answers to search queries. Appearing at the top of search results, AIO analyzes multiple online sources to answer search queries. Instead of focusing on keywords, it answers user queries based on their questions. AIO prioritizes specialized, relevant content from niche-specific websites instead of generic information, ensuring users get detailed, relevant, and accurate answers. It generates quick, relevant insights and can help improve user experience.

Here are some ways in which Google’s AIO can affect your SEO.

Improved Understanding of Content

Since AIO was introduced in 2024, Google’s semantic capabilities have improved significantly. It now understands content on a deeper level. Google’s natural processing languages, such as BERT and MUM, can better interpret the context and intent of content. Therefore, it is more critical than ever that content creators create quality content that effectively answers users’ queries.

E-E-A-T Principles

AI enables Google to assess content's experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness more effectively. To rank higher on Google, use content created by subject matter experts. Be sure to include references, credentials, and content quality signals (which indicate that a lot of effort has gone into creating a piece) in the content. To build trust with readers, use HTTPS, adopt clear, transparent, and easy-to-understand privacy policies, and ensure your website's contact details are accurate.

Content Quality Matters More Than Ever

AIO uses artificial intelligence to assess content depth, relevance, and accuracy. Thin content can do more harm than good, as it may fail to meet Google’s and users expectations. To rank in AI overviews, write dense content instead of thin, repetitive content. Write for humans, not search engines (you can optimize your content later for Google and other search engines). Regularly update content to keep it relevant.

Personalized Search Results

AIO personalizes search results based on user location, behavior, and preferences. Consider using these tried and tested local SEO techniques to deliver content and advertisements to consumers based on their geographic location (geotargeting):

• Optimize your Google Business Profile—add pictures or videos of your products or office to it, and ensure NAP consistency
• Use localized keywords in content
• Write content around local events and attractions, and create location-specific landing pages
• Get backlinks from local businesses to build credibility and establish authority
• Optimize for voice search and use structured data
• Encourage your local customers to write reviews
• Leverage social media to engage your local audience

To rank in AIO, adapt content to specific audience segments. Understand your audience, create audience segments, set goals for each segment, and adjust your messages accordingly.

Topic Clusters and AI Semantic Search

AI helps Google understand search intent (rather than just keywords), supporting semantic search. It creates comprehensive resources by using topic clusters and internal links. Addressing subtopics improves contextual relevance.

Spam and Manipulative Tactics Detection

AIO uses artificial intelligence to identify black hat SEO techniques like keyword stuffing and link farming. Google penalizes businesses that use these techniques. To avoid Google's wrath, use ethical, white-hat SEO techniques. Instead of farming backlinks, leverage your relationships and content to obtain them.

Visual and Multimodal Search

AI processes images, videos, and text simultaneously, improving Google’s visual search capabilities. To optimize your visual content, use descriptive alt tags and metadata. Include high-quality images in the content. To improve content visibility, leverage YouTube and other video-sharing platforms.

How Do AI Overviews Affect SEO?

Instead of simply listing links, AIO pulls content from multiple sources to create a summarized answer at the top of the search page. While this can improve user experience, it also means your website might not get the same visibility it used to, even if it ranks on the first page.

Here’s how AIO can impact your SEO:

1. Reduced Click-Through Rates (CTR)

If users find what they need in the AIO snippet, they may never click through to your site. That means even high-ranking pages could see a drop in traffic.

2. Increased Competition for Featured Visibility

AIO often pulls from niche, authoritative content. To be featured, your content needs to be highly relevant, well-structured, and trusted by Google. It's not just about keywords—it's about answering questions clearly and accurately.

3. Greater Emphasis on Topical Authority

Websites that consistently publish in-depth, topic-specific content are more likely to be cited in AIO responses. This rewards brands that focus on building expertise in a particular niche.

4. Structured Data and Clear Formatting Matter More

Google’s AI favors content that’s easy to parse—think FAQs, how-to lists, and content with schema markup. Clean formatting helps your content get noticed by the algorithm.

5. E-E-A-T Is Even More Important

Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) remain central. AIO pulls from sources it considers credible, so establishing your brand as a trusted voice in your industry is key.

How is AI Overview Affecting SEO for Blogging?

Traditionally, well-optimized blog posts could rank on page one and drive steady organic traffic. Now, AI Overviews are summarizing answers from multiple sources—often right above your blog post in the search results. That means users may find what they need without ever clicking through.

Here’s how that shift is impacting blogging specifically:

1. Decreased Click-Through Rates (CTR)

A well-written blog post might still be referenced in an AI Overview—but users may not click on it if they’ve already gotten their answer from the summary. This can lead to lower traffic, even if your content is contributing to the response.

2. Greater Emphasis on Authority and Depth

Google’s AI tends to pull content from sources that show consistent expertise and niche authority. That means surface-level or generic blog posts won’t cut it anymore. Instead, blogs that go deep, provide original insights, or share first-hand experiences are more likely to be cited or discovered.

3. Content That Directly Answers Questions Performs Better

AIO is designed to solve specific user queries. So blog posts that are structured around clear questions and answers (like FAQs, how-to guides, or explainer content) are more likely to get noticed by the AI.

Tip: Blog titles that mirror search intent—like “How to Improve Local SEO for Restaurants” or “What Is Adaptive SEO?”—are more aligned with how AIO curates content.

4. Formatting and Structure Are Now SEO Essentials

AI prefers clean, well-structured content. That means using:

• Descriptive headers (H2s, H3s)
• Bullet points and numbered lists
• Clear intro and summary sections
  This makes it easier for Google's AI to “understand” your content and pull from it.

5. More Focus on Brand Visibility Over Traffic

Even if your blog post doesn’t get the click, being featured as a cited source in an AI Overview can still offer brand exposure and credibility. That’s especially valuable for B2B brands, thought leaders, and local businesses building trust online.

How Google AI Overviews Work

When a user enters a complex or question-based search, Google uses generative AI to scan and synthesize information from multiple high-quality web sources. It then creates a concise summary that appears at the top of the results page.

1. Query Understanding

Google first interprets the intent behind the user’s question, not just the keywords. It’s looking to understand what the user is really asking and what type of answer would be most useful.

2. Source Selection

The AI scans trusted content across the web, pulling from websites that demonstrate topical expertise, strong content structure, and credibility (E-E-A-T). Niche, specialized content often gets prioritized over generic information.

3. Answer Generation

Using generative AI, Google then compiles a readable summary that draws from multiple sources. This overview typically includes key facts, explanations, or steps, depending on the query.

4. Citations & Links

At the bottom of the AI Overview, Google includes clickable source links. These show where the information was gathered from, allowing users to dig deeper if they choose.

5. User-Centric Display

The AIO appears prominently, usually at the top of the search results page, providing a fast, streamlined experience, especially on mobile. In some cases, users may also see follow-up prompts to refine their search.

This is part of Google's broader shift toward AI-driven search, which emphasizes user intent, content clarity, and trust signals. 

How to Manage Zero-Click Content?

Zero-click content provides comprehensive answers within the search interface itself, eliminating the need to click through to another site. There are several benefits of zero-click content. It improves user experience, helps brands establish authority, and engages users. Some examples of zero-click content include:

• Featured snippets, rich results, and knowledge panels 
• Instagram carousels or Twitter threads that include complete ideas or stories without linking to other sources 
• FAQ sections

By managing zero-click content, you can maintain trust and brand value even when users do not click through to your website.

What AI Overviews Look Like

Here's what you'll typically see in an AI overview:

• A multi-sentence summary that answers the user's question clearly and conversationally
• Bolded key points or headings that highlight important parts of the answer
• Source citations (usually clickable links) showing where the information came from
• Follow-up prompts or suggested questions that encourage users to continue exploring related topics
• Sometimes, images or step-by-step lists (especially for how-to queries)

These elements make overviews important for brand visibility—even without the user clicking through.

Optimizing for Google's AIO

Here are our top zero-click content optimization tips.

• Optimize for rich snippets: Structure your content to improve its chances of appearing in featured snippets and knowledge panels. 
• Build a social media presence: Upload authoritative content that helps establish your expertise on social media platforms. 
• Create quality content that engages your target audience more deeply: Use effective CTAs that encourage readers to take desired actions in the content. Add guides, videos, and other resources to your website. 
• Measure and optimize: Use Google Search Console and other tools to measure visibility and social listening tools to monitor brand mentions. 
• Leverage different channels: Use email marketing to direct traffic to your website. Participate in discussions on online communities, niche networks, and forums your target audience uses.

How AI Overview Will Change SEO

1. Keyword Rankings Will Matter Less—Search Intent Will Matter More

Traditional SEO focused heavily on targeting specific keywords. With AIO, Google’s AI is trying to understand the intent behind a query and provide a synthesized answer. That means your content needs to answer real questions clearly, not just include the right phrases.

2. Visibility Won’t Guarantee Clicks

Even if your site is referenced in an AI Overview, users may not click through—because they’ve already seen the answer. So, SEO strategies will need to focus more on earning brand visibility and trust, not just driving clicks.

3. Authoritative, Niche Content Will Win

Google’s AI prefers content from sites that demonstrate expertise and topical depth. Sites that consistently publish high-quality, relevant information within a specific niche are more likely to be cited. This means building authority in your domain is more important than ever.

4. Content Structure and Schema Will Play a Bigger Role

AI Overviews pull content that’s easy to parse—like clearly labeled sections, bullet points, and FAQs. Technical SEO elements like schema markup can help Google better understand and highlight your content.

5. E-E-A-T Will Influence What the AI Pulls

Content that shows Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) will have a greater chance of being used in AIO summaries. This means investing in strong author bios, trustworthy sources, and third-party signals like reviews or backlinks.

How to Prevent Your Content From Showing Up in AI Overviews

If you're concerned about Google’s AI Overviews using your content without driving traffic back to your site, there are ways to opt out—though it’s important to weigh the pros and cons before doing so.

Google currently allows publishers to control how their content is used in AI-generated summaries through standard web protocols and settings.

How to Prevent Your Content From Showing Up in AI Overviews

If you're concerned about Google’s AI Overviews using your content without driving traffic back to your site, there are ways to opt out—though it’s important to weigh the pros and cons before doing so.

Google currently allows publishers to control how their content is used in AI-generated summaries through standard web protocols and settings.

1. Use the nosnippet tag.

You can add a nosnippet meta tag to your pages to prevent Google from showing any part of your content in AI Overviews or featured snippets.

html

CopyEdit

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

Effect: This removes your content from snippets entirely—including rich results and AI Overviews. It may also reduce visibility in search, so use it carefully.

2. Control Individual Elements with data-nosnippet

If you want to allow most of the page to be indexed but exclude specific parts, you can add the data-nosnippet attribute to elements like paragraphs or sections.

html

CopyEdit

<p data-nosnippet>This section won’t appear in snippets or AI overviews.</p>

Effect: Gives you granular control without losing SEO value for the entire page.

3. Review Your Robots.txt Settings

While robots.txt doesn’t directly control AI Overviews, it can be used to block certain bots (including experimental AI crawlers). However, this can also block indexing entirely—so it’s not recommended unless you’re trying to completely remove content from Google Search.

Should You Block AI Overviews?

Before opting out, consider this:

If your content appears in AIO, it may build authority and brand visibility, even if click-throughs are lower.

Blocking AI Overviews could mean missing opportunities to be cited as a trusted source—especially for niche topics where Google seeks expert input.

Instead of blocking, a more strategic approach might be to optimize your content so that if it's used in AI Overviews, it still drives value through brand visibility, featured links, and reputation.

Learn More About the AI Overview

Since its introduction in 2024, Google’s AIO has undergone several changes. In 2025 and beyond, Google is expected to introduce many other changes to improve the relevance and accuracy of AI-generated summaries. It also tries to identify different ways to integrate AIO more seamlessly across multiple platforms and environments. Keep on top of Google AIO updates and seek expert help if necessary to understand how they impact SEO.

Ready to adapt your SEO strategy for Google's AI Overviews? Talk to us today to maximize your online visibility and learn more about the effects of the AI overview on SEO.