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AEO Wire
AEO Wire · Oct 5 Google SearchAEOResearch

Last Week in AI Search: October 5

The Story

Google’s AI Overviews are now jumping ahead of your brand

On September 29, 82.91% of searches containing a brand name showed an AI Overview, according to a report by Ahrefs. In July, it was 61.3%.

They also tracked searches for just brand names alone, like “Nike.” Not even “Nike stores” or “Nike prices” — just plain old “Nike.” By September 30, Google’s AI Overviews showed up for 63 of the 100 top brands they tracked, up from 5 on July 1. In 48 of those 63, the AI Overview sat at the top, above the brand’s own site.

If you’re Googling “Nike,” you’re not confused on what it is, nor are you (probably) searching for the Greek goddess or the missile sites. You’re using it as a shortcut to get to the website.

I do this hundreds of times a week — type a website name into the address bar of my Google Chrome browser, press enter, and it’ll take me to a Google results page where the first link is always (usually) the intended website.

When someone Googles my brand, I want my website to be the top result. I don’t need an AI Overview based on information floating around Wikipedia, YouTube, or LinkedIn, the top three most-cited sources.

One caution: researcher Chris Long ran a one-time test of about 100 large brands. He found an AI Overview on 93%, but mostly mid-page or lower. The two disagree on how often it appears and where it sits. Both found it on the search a company most expects to own. One small comfort: of the 57 source lists Ahrefs could see, only one cited a competitor’s site.

What the record says to do

  • Google yourself, then read what Google read (AI Overview citation). Search your brand the way a customer would. Read the AI Overview, then click its sources. Most of them won’t be yours — and it’s not just Google. On SaaS buying questions, Wikipedia alone made up 10 to 14% of the domains ChatGPT cited, according to Growth Memo. Your own site can work against you, too. When Google tested the same format on local business panels, it quoted out-of-date facts from the business’s own website. So keep the pages you control current, and link them to each other. Will that change what the AI Overview says? Honestly, the record hasn’t tested it yet.
  • Don’t trust “position 1” (measurement). If your site shows up inside the AI Overview, Search Console counts the whole box as one result, usually position 1. That’s true even if your link is buried behind “Show more.” So “position 1” on your brand name doesn’t mean you’re the first thing people see. GA4 isn’t much better. A nine-month study found it filed 22.4% of AI Overview clicks under Direct. That’s the bucket for people who typed your address straight in. Watch the clicks on your brand name instead. Track them apart from searches that don’t use your name, the way Microsoft Clarity now does.

Ahrefs sells search-data tools and published this itself; Long’s is one researcher’s test. Read the item → · where this sits: Where does AI now appear in Google Search?

The Follow-Up

Last week’s Story ended on a bet: your reputation matters more than the pages you write about yourself. Two studies this week support that. Discovered Labs studied 2 million AI citations. It found a site’s overall authority outweighed the strongest page feature sixfold. Structured data stopped predicting citations once authority was considered. That makes it the third study in the record to find schema doesn’t earn citations. Recrawled found 9 of 40 UK software firms on no AI shortlist. How many reviews a firm had made no difference. Last week’s test measured review ratings, not review counts, so the two don’t conflict.

The Numbers

  • About 100 publishers are in Google’s AI contribution pilot. On average, Google pays them under 0.1% of their ad revenue. Some received under $1,000 over several months; one topped $1 million a year. Google hasn’t disclosed how it calculates the totals. (The Information, via Search Engine Roundtable) Read →
  • The median AI-cited page lost half its peak citation share in 11 days. Profound tracked 883,000 pages on seven engines for a year. Pages cited by five or more engines held on 5.5 times as often. (Profound study) Read →
  • Some sites are easy for AI agents to fetch and read. AI answers about those businesses drew on their own pages 78% of the time, compared to 56% for the rest. The study ran 37,927 simulated buyer journeys. (preprint; a co-author co-founded the agent-search company Tavily) Read →
  • On insurance-definition questions, Healthcare.gov’s share of ChatGPT’s citations doubled in a month, rising to 40.4% from 19.2%. ChatGPT cited insurers’ own sites only when the question named the insurer. (BrightEdge study; panel size undisclosed) Read →

The Rest

  • A judge dismissed Penske Media and Chegg’s antitrust suit over AI Overviews. The judge said publishers expected search traffic but had no contract for it. They can refile. Read →
  • Gemini now tags its outbound links, so its visits no longer land in GA4’s Direct bucket. Mostly desktop: about 9% of mobile-app visits carry the tag. Read →
  • The Justice Department says OpenAI’s copying of news was fair use, meaning it was legal without permission. The New York Times and other publishers told the court the trial evidence says otherwise. Read →
  • Google’s guide to AI-written content now quotes its rater guidelines. AI content is acceptable if it adds value and is fact-checked. Mass-producing it can be considered spam. Read →
  • Through LiveRamp, brands can now target ChatGPT ads using their own customer data in 11 markets. Read →
  • AI Mode hotel booking will run on an open standard backed by Booking.com, Expedia, Hilton, and Marriott. Read →
  • Meta’s Muse shopping agent doesn’t name the sites it visits. (Profound; 50 test prompts) Read →
  • Correction, Sept. 28 — Luna and site: search: Seer measured fan-out queries, the sub-searches ChatGPT runs while answering. Luna used site: in 76% of those, not 76% of searches.

All 33 items from September 28–October 4, dated and sourced: the week on the wire · State of Search · Corrections · Archive. Seen something the record should hold? Reply to this email; tips are credited by name.

The full wire

34 items published September 28–October 4. Every item dated, sourced and linked. An item can carry more than one lane, so lane totals exceed the count.

Google Search · 14

Research · 7

Engines · 4

Law & Money · 4

Tools & Vendors · 3

AEO · 2

Read the complete archive →

Why it matters: The one place on the wire where the week is read rather than reported — compiled from the published record, framed by the editor, checkable line by line.

Glossary: AEOGEOSEOCitation sharellms.txtAI OverviewsAI ModeQuery fan-out

Via AEO Wire ↗

Posted to the wire October 5, 2026. Edited by Joe Balewski.

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