In the early days of AI Overviews (and Search Generative Experience before that), Google typically cited sources beyond the top 10 results.

The sources cited in Google AI Overviews now match one or more of the webpages from the top 10 Google organic search results 99.5% of the time.

This new data was shared on LinkedIn by Mark Traphagen, VP of Product Marketing and training at seoClarity, an enterprise SEO platform. The finding is based on seoClarity’s analysis of 36,000 keywords.

Why we care. This appears to be a huge change. Since the early days of Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), which later became AI Overviews, Google often showed sources outside the top 10 organic results. This resulted in Google showing some less-than-authoritative and trustworthy sources and content in AI Overviews.

After getting called out for giving dangerous and wrong answers, Google massively reduced the visibility of AI Overviews and promised improvements. We’ve seen lots of volatility with AI Overviews over the past three months since they officially launched.

Context. So how huge is this change? In January, the sources appearing in SGE were different from the top 10 Google organic search results an incredible 93.8% of the time. That finding came from an Authoritas analysis. From that report:

• “93.8% of generative links (in this dataset at least) came from sources outside the top-ranking organic domains. With only 4.5% of generative URLs directly matching a page 1 organic URL and only 1.6% showing a different URL from the same organic ranking domain.”

What it means. Google may now be incorporating more traditional search ranking signals as part of its custom Gemini model. As Traphagen put it:

• “AI Overview optimization is now just….Google optimization!”
• “One of the best ways to get mentioned in an AIO now is to rank highly in Google.”