The short version
- Only 28.7% of 4,051 AI Overview citations were page-one organic results for the same search, in our study of 481 US AI Overviews in September 2026.
- Position still matters: the first organic result was cited in 49.5% of AI Overviews and the ninth in 15.5%, in the same study.
- Across 7,562 AI Overviews collected over 40 days in 2026, 29.8% of cited domains did not appear anywhere on Google’s first page (Xu and colleagues).
- In a US and German audit summarized by Martinez, 53% of domains cited by AI Overviews were not in the organic top 10, and 27% were not in the top 100.
- AI Overview sources move more than rankings: the same pages appeared across two months 18% of the time for AI Overviews, against 45% for organic results.
How often do AI Overviews cite pages that rank on page one?
Less than a third of citations come from page-one results, but most AI Overviews cite at least one. In our AI Overview citation study, we collected every source cited in 481 US AI Overviews on 26 September 2026, 4,051 citations in all. Only 28.7% were page-one organic results for the same search.
Most AI Overviews still drew on page one somewhere. 78.8% cited at least one page-one result, while 21.2% cited none. Counting whole websites rather than single pages raises the match to 43.0%, because Google sometimes cites a different page from a site that ranks.
Xu and colleagues (opens in a new tab) found the same pattern at a larger scale. They issued 55,393 trending US queries between March 13 and April 21, 2026. Averaged across 7,562 AI Overviews, only 31.5% of cited domains were among the top five results, 48.0% among the top ten and 70.2% anywhere on the first page.
| Measure | Result | Study |
|---|---|---|
| Citations that are page-one pages | 28.7% | Underneath, September 2026 |
| Cited domains in Google’s top five | 31.5% | Xu et al., spring 2026 |
| Cited domains in Google’s top ten | 48.0% | Xu et al., spring 2026 |
| Cited domains anywhere on page one | 70.2% | Xu et al., spring 2026 |
| Cited domains outside the top ten | 53% | Kirsten et al., via Martinez |
The figures differ partly because some count pages and others count whole domains. In every study, a large share of what AI Overviews cite is not on page one.
Does a higher ranking raise your chances?
Yes, steadily, with no sudden drop after the top three. In our study, the first organic result was cited in 49.5% of AI Overviews, the third in 33.5%, the sixth in 23.2% and the ninth in 15.5%. A first-place result was about three times as likely to be cited as a ninth-place one.
But position explains only a small part of the picture. In our study of what cited pages have in common, we compared 3,096 top-10 pages on the same searches. Position and 14 page features together left 91.4% of the variation in which pages were cited unexplained.
Rankings also carry over less well to Google’s other AI surface. Our comparison of AI Mode and AI Overviews found that, for pages in positions 1 to 3, the AI Overview cited 42.3% and AI Mode 26.0%. Why ranking work still earns its place is covered in our guide on SEO in AI search.
Where do the other citations come from?
Largely from sites that have no page-one result at all, plus video and Google’s own pages. In our study, 38.5% of all AI Overview citations came from sites with no page-one organic result for the search. YouTube was cited in 64.2% of AI Overviews, and most of its citations were not page-one results.
The independent audits point the same way. Martinez’s critical survey of the field (opens in a new tab) reports an audit by Kirsten and colleagues in the United States and Germany: 53% of domains cited by AI Overviews were not in the organic top ten, and 27% were absent from the top 100.
The off-page sources are not weaker. Xu and colleagues found AI Overview sources scored as more credible than the first page as a whole, though not than its top few results. They also cited far fewer social platforms: 14.2% of AI Overview references came from sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Reddit, against 49.9% of first-page results.
Is an AI Overview citation stable once you have it?
No. AI Overview sources change faster than organic rankings do. In the audit by Kirsten and colleagues, as summarized by Martinez, page overlap across two months was 18% for AI Overviews, against 45% for organic Google results.
Small wording changes matter too. Grossman and colleagues (opens in a new tab) changed queries in minor ways, such as “what is” versus “what’s”. AI Overview sources for the edited query matched the original 28.99% less well than two runs of the same query did, against a 13.95% drop for regular results.
AI Overviews also appear only on some searches. Xu and colleagues saw one on 13.7% of trending queries overall, but on 64.7% of searches phrased as a question. A strong ranking cannot earn a citation on a search that shows no AI Overview.
What should you do about it?
Keep investing in rankings, but track AI Overview citations as a separate result. Steps that follow from the evidence:
- Measure citation directly. A rank report cannot tell you whether you are cited, so check the AI Overview itself for the searches that matter to you. Whether a citation brings visits is a separate question, covered in our guide on citations and lost clicks.
- Aim for the top positions. The citation rate falls steadily down the page, so moving from ninth to first matters.
- Cover the questions behind the search. Many cited pages answer a narrower part of the question rather than ranking for the search as typed.
- Look at video. YouTube appeared in most AI Overviews we studied, usually from outside the organic results.
- Track over weeks, not once. A citation seen today may be gone next month, and small wording changes shift the sources.
If you want this measured for your own searches, our generative engine optimization service starts with that audit.
What does the research not tell us yet?
The studies describe the gap well, but they cannot yet say how to close it.
- All of them are observational. None shows that ranking higher causes a citation, or that changing a page wins one.
- They count pages and domains differently, so the headline figures are not directly comparable.
- The two-month stability figure comes from one audit, reported second-hand in a survey.
- Most data comes from US searches, collected at one location over days or weeks, not across many countries or user profiles.
- A citation is not influence. None of these studies measures how much of the answer each cited page actually supplied.
Frequently asked questions
Does ranking number one on Google guarantee an AI Overview citation?
No. In our study the first organic result was cited in 49.5% of AI Overviews, so about half the time it was not.
What share of AI Overview sources come from Google’s first page?
About three in ten citations by page. In our study 28.7% of citations were page-one pages, and Xu and colleagues found 29.8% of cited domains were not on page one at all.
Can a page that does not rank still be cited in an AI Overview?
Yes. In our study 38.5% of AI Overview citations came from sites with no page-one result for the search.
Is SEO still worth doing for AI Overviews?
Yes, but it is not enough on its own. Higher positions are cited more often, yet most citations come from elsewhere, so citations need their own tracking.
Sources
- Xu, Iqbal and Montgomery (2026), Measuring Google AI Overviews: Activation, Source Quality, Claim Fidelity, and Publisher Impact (opens in a new tab), arXiv:2605.14021.
- Martinez (2026), Optimizing Visibility in Generative Engines: A Critical Survey of Generative Engine Optimization (2023-2026) (opens in a new tab), arXiv:2607.14035.
- Grossman, Liu, Chen, Smith, Borcea and Chen (2026), How Generative AI Disrupts Search: An Empirical Study of Google Search, Gemini, and AI Overviews (opens in a new tab), arXiv:2604.27790.
- Underneath (2026), Do AI Overviews cite the pages that rank? 4,051 citations
- Underneath (2026), What pages cited by AI Overviews have in common: 3,096 pages
- Underneath (2026), AI Mode vs AI Overviews: how different are the sources?