Google's AI answers now show more links. How do you become one of them?

What did Google change on 15 October?

Google published five updates to how AI Overviews and AI Mode show links to websites. The post came from Hema Budaraju, Google's VP of Product Management.

• More inline links, placed higher. Google says it has made "continued and substantial increases" to the links inside its AI answers, and that it now shows them higher in responses more often.
• An official-sites section (testing). Google is testing a section at the top of some answers that surfaces the official websites for a task, with a short note on why each link is useful.
• Wider news carousels (rolling out). Carousels for timely articles are expanding to more locations and languages, and they highlight each reader's Preferred Sources.
• More visual related-article links. Links at the end of some answers now get image thumbnails and a more clickable design.
• Creator names on video results (testing). In AI Mode, some creator and publisher names on videos now link to their Google Search profiles.

Google also said the number of people using Preferred Sources has grown more than 7x since the start of the year. It did not give a baseline.

Does this mean more clicks for your website?

Not necessarily. Google published no click data with the update. Search Engine Land's Barry Schwartz wrote that Google is clearly trying to get searchers to click links in AI responses, but that so far there is little sign of it. PPC Land, covering the same update, cites a randomised field experiment with 1,065 US participants in which AI Overviews cut outbound organic clicks by 39.8%.

So treat this as a better chance of being seen and cited, not a promise of traffic. When an AI answer does link out, there are now more slots and they sit higher on the page. Being one of those links matters more than it did a month ago.

What does Google say you need to do?

Less than you might expect. Google's Search Central guidance says there are "no additional requirements" to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. A page has to be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet. Google also says you don't need special schema.org markup or new "AI text files" for these features.

The basics it does list:

• allow crawling in robots.txt and in your CDN or hosting settings
• use internal links so pages are easy to find
• keep important content as text, not locked inside images
• support the text with relevant images and video
• keep your Business Profile and Merchant Center details current

Traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is counted in Search Console's Performance report, under the "Web" search type.

What should you do about each change?

How do you become the page Google links to?

Our advice, based on the update and Google's own guidance:

1. 1Own the official answer about your company. Have one clear page for each thing people can only get from you: your services, sign-up or booking, support, documentation and contact. If a directory explains your product better than your own site does, the directory gets the link.
2. 2Answer one question per section. Use question-shaped headings and put the answer in the first sentence underneath. Inline links attach to specific words and phrases, so a crisp sentence is easier to cite than a long paragraph.
3. 3Check that Google can read it. Run your key pages through the URL Inspection tool in Search Console. Copy hidden in tabs, sliders or images is easy to lose.
4. 4Use real images. Related-article links now show thumbnails. A generic stock photo gives nobody a reason to click.
5. 5Ask loyal readers to choose you. If you publish news or timely articles, Google offers an embeddable Preferred Sources button, and some site owners now receive emails showing how many people picked them.
6. 6Check monthly. Look at Search Console, then ask Google, ChatGPT and Perplexity the questions your buyers ask and note who gets cited.

Where should a small team start?

Start with the pages only you can own: product, service and contact pages. Then rewrite your five most common buyer questions as answer-first sections. Our free AEO score checker gives a quick read on how ready a page is to be cited, and our guide to getting recommended by ChatGPT covers the wider picture. If you'd rather hand it over, that is what our SEO, AEO and GEO service does.

Sources

• AI Mode and AI Overviews updates to explore the web (Google, 15 October 2026)
• Google updates AI Mode and AI Overview with more links, context, carousels and information on creators (Search Engine Land, 15 October 2026)
• Google pushes links higher in AI answers as Preferred Sources use rises 7x (PPC Land, 18 October 2026)
• Google shares preferred source follower data via email (Search Engine Land, 6 October 2026)
• AI features and your website (Google Search Central, accessed 19 October 2026)