Google Is Putting More Website Links in Its AI Answers, but Won’t Say How Many Clicks They Get
Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode will show more links to websites, higher up in the answer, and it's testing a section for "official" sites. It shared no click numbers.
More and better-placed links in Google's AI answers could send websites more visits, but Google hasn't shown any proof yet. Judge it by whether your own visits from Google change, not by the announcement.
On October 15, 2026, Google announced changes to how AI Overviews (the AI-written summaries at the top of some Google results) and AI Mode (its chat-style search) link out to websites. The announcement came from Hema Budaraju, Google’s vice president of product management.
What changed
- More links inside the answer. Google says it has made “continued and substantial increases” to links placed in the answer text, and is launching updates to show them higher up more often. It didn’t say how big the increase is.
- An official-sites section, in testing. When there are “only one or two official places on the web to complete a specific task,” Google will test a section at the top of the answer that features those sites, with a note on why each link is useful.
- More clickable links at the end. The links shown at the end of some answers are getting image thumbnails and a more clickable design.
- More carousels of timely articles. These carousels, which also highlight sites people have picked as Preferred Sources, are starting to roll out to more locations and languages. Google says Preferred Sources use has grown more than 7x since the start of the year.
What’s confirmed and what isn’t
Google confirmed the changes themselves. The official-sites section is only a test, with no timeline. What isn’t confirmed is whether any of this brings websites more visits: Google shared no click or traffic numbers. Google told Search Engine Roundtable it will “introduce additional metrics over time.”
There’s also a measurement catch, pointed out by Search Engine Journal. Google’s own Search Console help page says an AI Overview takes up a single position in the results, and every link inside it gets that same position. So if your link moves higher inside an answer, your reported position won’t change.
Why it matters for a small business
The official-sites test is the part to watch. Google didn’t say which tasks qualify or give any examples. Our read: if the test grows to cover things like booking with or contacting a specific business, that business’s own website is the obvious official place to send people. Google hasn’t said that, though, so treat it as a possibility, not a plan.
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