How do I appear in Google AI Overviews?

AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on Google's search index. Google's documentation says that to be eligible as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and able to show a snippet, and that you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special schema.org markup.

What that means in practice:

• Check indexing first. Pages blocked by robots.txt, marked noindex or failing to render won't be used.
• Don't restrict snippets by accident. nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet also limit how your content appears in AI features.
• Cover the related questions around a topic. Google describes a query fan-out technique, where its AI runs several related searches to build one answer, so pages that address follow-up questions have more chances to be retrieved.
• Write original, specific content. Google's guidance stresses unique, people-first content rather than rewording what already ranks.

Traffic from AI features is included in Search Console's Performance report under the Web search type, and Google's AI optimization guide also points to a generative AI performance report in Search Console. To estimate how many clicks are at stake for your keywords, try the AI Overviews Traffic Loss Calculator.