Update: Check out our research on AI Overviews in Slovakia.
What are AI Overviews?
AI Overviews are a new feature of Google Search that provides concise answers to search queries directly in the search results. According to official documentation, an overview appears when Google determines that a generative answer would be useful to the user. The content is generated based on available sources, which the AI displays alongside its generated answer. The overview is mostly informative in nature and serves to provide a more detailed explanation of the searched term or question.
What impact do AI Overviews have on website visibility and traffic?
The impact of AI Overviews on organic traffic is confirmed by several real-world studies. In the first study, Ahrefs analyzed 300,000 keywords and found that the presence of AI Overviews in search results causes a significant drop in click-through rate (CTR)—specifically, by up to 34.5% for the top position in informational queries. A comparison of data from March 2024 (before the introduction of AI Overviews in the U.S.) and March 2025 (after the introduction) showed that the average CTR for these queries dropped from 7.3% to 2.6%.
The research found that the impact varies significantly depending on whether the page is cited in the response or not. For example, an analysis by Siege Media recorded a 4% increase in CTR for cited pages, while a study by Kevin Indigo showed a decline of up to 9%. This discrepancy suggests that inclusion in AI Overviews alone does not always guarantee higher traffic.
SparkLaunch reports that when a page is not mentioned in AI Overviews, there is an approximately 11% drop in CTR, which—especially for pages ranked lower in search results—means a significant loss of visibility and clicks. These findings are also confirmed by an analysis from Terakeet, which highlights that inclusion in AI Overviews can have a positive impact, especially for transactional queries. Pages included in AI Overviews saw up to a 3.2-fold increase in clicks for these queries, while for informational queries, the increase was 1.1- to 1.5-fold.
This suggests that while AI Overviews may reduce the number of clicks on top-ranking results for highly informational searches, they can simultaneously help lower-ranking pages gain greater visibility and, consequently, traffic. Overall, these findings highlight the need for targeted content optimization to give a website the best possible chance of being included in AI Overviews, which is crucial for maintaining and growing traffic in the era of AI in search.
How to optimize for AI Overviews?
According to SurferSEO, only 52% of sources are taken from the classic top 10 positions. The rest are found outside the first page, which indicates that Google uses a different ranking algorithm for AI Overviews than for traditional search results. So let’s look at the principles of optimization for AI Overviews:
1. Content: unique, valuable, regularly updated
The cornerstone is content—unique and valuable. By “unique,” we mean content that is as distinct as possible from what’s already on the internet. “Valuable” means enriching for the user (new advice, tips, tricks, and procedures). Google provides a set of questions regarding content quality that you should use to evaluate your own content.
2. Add more context
If your articles are brief, they don’t cover the topic sufficiently—thereby reducing your chances of appearing in AI Overviews.
At the same time, keep your sentences concise, free of unnecessary words, and easy to read. Let’s take photovoltaics as an example:
Google selected Wikipedia as the most appropriate source because it provides the most concise and accurate definition of the phrase. In this case, it wasn’t entirely certain about the definition and also used a second, different but—in its view—appropriate description from the KLN Energy website, where photovoltaics is described as a technical field concerned with converting light into electricity.
The rest of the overview is then composed of additional context from Wikipedia. It includes information such as the advantages of photovoltaics, types of panels, applications, and more.
3. Write simply and clearly
According to findings from the National Institute of Education, up to a quarter of adults understand written text at the level of a ten-year-old child. Keep this in mind when creating content aimed at the general public.
The Flesch test, used in English, evaluates sentence difficulty based on these factors: word count and the number of letters in words. Longer words and longer sentences make text harder to read. Similarly, you shouldn’t use too many sentences in a single paragraph.
4. Page: accessible to crawlers, free of errors and distracting elements
Another important point is the page’s accessibility and the impression it makes. The crawler can find the content (it is not blocked in robots.txt, and there are links pointing to it that allow the crawler to reach it) and index it (it does not have a noindex tag, and it returns a 200 status code). The user experience of the page includes not only loading speed and server response but also whether the main content is distinguished from the rest (menu, navigation, banners, etc.), how the page displays on different devices, and whether it has pop-ups or other distracting elements.
5. Format: FAQs, headings, bullet points, brief definitions
Google also encourages the use of various media formats (images, video). It points out that people use Google Lens for image search and visual queries (such as identifying a plant from a photo). It also recommends using structured data, which helps the search engine understand the context of the page and enhance search results with additional visual elements (ratings, prices, information about videos, images, and much more).
6. E-E-A-T: Trustworthiness, Expertise, Authority, Experience
To increase the chance that your content will appear in AI Overviews, it is crucial to use clear, accurate, and expert content—that is, to formulate concise answers, definitions, and verified data, structure texts using headings, bullet points, and the FAQ format, and finally, consistently build E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), which means systematically increasing the credibility and quality of your content so that Google (and users) consider it a reliable source of information.
7. Earn mentions and relevant backlinks
It remains true that relevant mentions and backlinks are a sign of a website’s quality to Google. Quality trumps quantity, so a well-crafted link-building strategy can also help increase visibility in AI Overviews.
“The days of simple SEO, where even content without real value worked, are behind us. Statistics, multi-format content, proprietary know-how, and information unavailable to LLMs are playing an increasingly important role. However, the fundamentals of SEO remain the same: write for people, build authority, and ensure the website is accessible to search engine crawlers.” – Andrej Tomić
This is also confirmed by Ahrefs in its latest study, which found that branded mentions (Basta digital), branded links (Basta digital), and brand search volume (in third place with a weak correlation) show the highest correlation.
Last but not least, search engines and AI models prefer fresh and reliable information. If your article is outdated, it’s less likely to appear in search results or AI responses. This is especially true for topics that change rapidly—such as health, technology, or law. Just update the data occasionally, fix broken links, and keep the text current—Google will appreciate it.
It is crucial to understand how AI Overviews will influence your audience’s behavior, analyze changes in traffic, and adapt your SEO strategy to shifts in user behavior so that you remain a relevant and trustworthy source of information that will be cited.
What do the search results currently look like on Google.sk?
After entering a query into the search bar, an answer to the question or information relevant to the entered term appears. The AI Overview is displayed in a condensed form, which can be expanded by clicking “Learn more.”
On the right-hand side are the sources that AIO used to generate the answer. Within the text of the answer itself, you can also search for citations and paraphrases of individual paragraphs.
If AIO appears as the first result, it takes up more than 50% of the screen on a standard laptop. On mobile, the display takes up a similar portion of the screen, with the difference that sources are shown only via the websites’ favicons. After clicking on a paragraph, the source scrolls up from the bottom.
According to a study by SE Ranking, AIOs link to an average of 13.34 sources, though they most often contain 8 to 10 links. The average length of an AIO is 255 words, which is approximately 1,770 characters.
AIOs currently appear alongside various extensions, such as Featured Snippets, Knowledge Panels, or People Also Ask. According to a study by SE Ranking in the US, an extension appears in the search results alongside an AIO in 99.25% of cases. Most often, these are “Related Questions,” which appear in 98.54% of cases.
It is important to note, however, that the appearance of AIOs is constantly changing, and Google is introducing various new features, such as AI Mode.
For which keywords do AIOs appear?
According to a study by SE Ranking, the average display rate is 27.75%–28.66%. AIO appeared most frequently in the relationships and business categories, with a share ranging from 62.38% to 48.7%. The lowest share was recorded in the fashion and beauty segment, specifically ranging from 1.34% to 1.46%. According to a study by Authoritas, these figures differ—for terms focused on beauty and cosmetics, they recorded an impression share of up to 14%. This difference may be due, among other things, to different research methodologies and changes in how AIOs function over time.
The AI Overviews impression analysis is now also available for the Czech market. Marketing Miner identified the categories, where results appeared most frequently:
- Health (32%) – queries about symptoms, medications, diagnosis, and treatment
- Finance (24%) – explanations of various terms
- Automotive (14%) – technical guides or advice
SE Ranking also observed AI Overviews by search volume and came to an interesting conclusion. The display rate begins to decline if a keyword has more than 100 monthly searches. In terms of search phrase length, AIO appears more frequently for longer phrases. For 10-word phrases, it reaches 69.21%, whereas for 1-word phrases, it is only 12.78%.
In terms of keyword intent, according to Ahrefs, AIO appears primarily for informational keywords, at up to 97.7%. For commercial keywords, it is 12.86%, for transactional keywords 2.85%, and for navigational keywords 1.23%.
Which websites does AIO link to?
AIO links to multiple domains; according to a study by Botify and DemandSphere, up to 75% of sources are found in the top 12 positions. A more recent study by seoClarity found that in 99.5% of cases, AI Overviews included at least one of the top 10 search results in their sources. This suggests that optimizing to improve keyword rankings still makes sense.
According to Barry Schwartz, Google has started linking to its own search results in AIO. Google cites the facilitation of search queries as the reason. During its extensive testing, it found that users find it helpful to be linked directly to the relevant results page in these cases.
Can we measure traffic from AI Overviews?
In most cases, AI Overviews appear at the top of the Google search results page, pushing traditional organic results further down below the fold. The likelihood of clicking through to the pages listed in this overview is higher than for pages below the fold, which is why it is crucial to measure traffic from the generated overview.
Google Search Console also tracks traffic from AI Overviews in the “Performance – Search Results” section. However, it is currently not possible to filter this traffic further. What Google states in its documentation is how the metrics are recorded.
- A click on a page located in the AI Overviews is counted as a click.
- Impressions are recorded in the same way as in a regular search; the link must be scrolled out of view or expanded.
- AI Overviews occupies one position in the search results, so all links listed within it will be assigned the same position—meaning if the overview is in the first position, all links will be listed as position 1 in Google Search Console.
In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), traffic from generated overviews is also recorded, though not directly, but under specific classifications based on interaction. It may appear as organic traffic, direct, or referral. However, there are several ways you can configure the tracking—one of which is outlined by Dana DiTomaso in her article “How to Track Traffic from AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, or People Also Ask Results in Google Analytics 4.”
Which keywords and how to monitor them?
AI Overviews were displayed during the initial launch phase in the U.S., for which existing tools added the ability to measure impressions in generated overviews. However, most of these tools are not available for the Slovak or Czech markets.
Fortunately, at just the right time, the Marketing Miner tool added the ability to measure which keywords AI Overviews appear for and even which URLs are included in them. We conducted a quick analysis of 4,600 selected keywords from the insurance sector and found that only 4.6% of them trigger AI Overviews, with UNIQA being the most visible insurance company.
Currently, you can monitor AI Overviews in Marketing Miner as well as directly within the project. After clicking on “AI Overviews – Search Results Extension,” a window will appear with detailed information about the landing page and its changes.
Another tool where you can track generated overviews for both targeted and organic keywords that drive traffic to your site is Ahrefs. You can easily access this via added projects and the “SERP features – AI overviews” filter.
Another option for a quick overview is to use the classic Site Explorer, which displays keywords for which AI Overviews appear in search results, or, when using the “Where target ranks” filter, even specific phrases for which the target page appears. Here’s how to get there:
- Site Explorer – Enter a page
- In the left sidebar – Organic keywords
- In the top menu – Add filter
- SERP features – AI Overviews
- You can also check “Where target ranks”
In addition to the tools mentioned above, there are others such as SE Ranking, Ziptie, and seoClarity; however, these may have limitations for our market. There are also other API solutions available that are more affordable and can be used for regular reporting.
What if I don’t want to appear in AI Overviews?
In that case, there are several options, but please note that each one will also affect your visibility in traditional search results. These alternatives are:
- Noindex – completely excludes the page from AI Overviews, as well as from traditional Google search
- Nosnippet – does not generate a snippet of text from your page – in regular search, this means removing the sentences that are typically displayed in the search result below the title or below the URL; suitable if you have sensitive content on the page (content behind a paywall is usually handled automatically)
- Data-nosnippet – unlike the tag above, this can only be applied to a specific part of the content that you do not want to display in AI Overviews and meta descriptions
- Max-snippet – specifies the number of characters in which the snippet should be generated
Research: Slovakia and AI Overviews?
At Basta digital, we are conducting a cross-sectional study to determine the share of AI Overviews displayed for various searches. We are identifying which types of searches and which market segments are most influenced by AI Overviews. Interested in the results? Leave us your email below.