Google AI Overviews Optimisation

It is the same index you already compete in

AI Overviews are not a parallel product with a separate entry route. Google retrieves from its normal web index, summarises, and links out to the pages it drew on, which is why the cited sources so often overlap with pages already ranking on page one for the query or for a closely related sub-query. The practical implication is unromantic: if you are nowhere near the first page, AI Overviews optimisation is not your problem, ordinary ranking is. We check that first and refuse to sell AI-specific work to sites that have not done the basics.

The controls that genuinely exist

Google's real levers here are the snippet controls, and they are widely misconfigured. A nosnippet directive removes your text from snippets and from being used in AI Overviews. A restrictive max-snippet value limits how much text can be used. The data-nosnippet attribute excludes specific HTML blocks. Sites that once added these to stop competitor scraping, or inherited them from a theme, are opting themselves out without realising. Note that Google-Extended is not the control here — that token governs Gemini Apps grounding and model training, not AI Overviews in Search. Getting these two straight is often the entire technical fix.

Writing for sub-queries, not just the head term

An AI Overview is usually assembled from several sub-questions rather than one. A query about cyber security course fees pulls fee ranges, duration, eligibility, placement and comparison, and different pages can supply different parts. That changes how a page should be structured: cover the head topic, then answer each obvious sub-question in its own short, self-contained block under a question-shaped H2, with numbers stated plainly and dated. Pricing written as a real range — a cyber security course at ₹15,000, an ethical hacking course at ₹60,000 — can be used. "Contact us for pricing" cannot be summarised into anything.

Trust signals still do the deciding

When several pages can answer a sub-question, the ones used tend to be from sources Google already treats as credible for that topic. That is ordinary experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust work: a named author with verifiable credentials, an about page that establishes who is actually responsible, consistent Organization and Person schema, primary sources cited where you make a factual claim, and visible last-updated dates on anything time-sensitive. For a specialist firm the winning position is narrow and deep. Being the clearest source in India on a small set of questions beats being a shallow generalist across hundreds.

Measuring it honestly

Search Console does not break out AI Overview impressions as a separate dimension, so anyone quoting you an exact AI Overview click figure is estimating and should say so. What we track instead: position and impression trends for the queries where an Overview appears, click-through rate changes on those queries against a control set where none appears, and a periodic manual check of which domains are cited for your priority queries. We report the uncertainty rather than smoothing it over. Engagements run at technical SEO ₹25,000/month or on-page ₹15,000/month, with the ₹10,000 audit first.

Google AI Overviews Optimisation — FAQs