Rating in Google’s high 10 is a weaker indicator of being cited in AI Overviews than it was final 12 months, in line with an up to date Ahrefs evaluation.
The research examined 863,000 key phrases and 4 million AI Overview URLs. It discovered that 38% of cited pages additionally appeared within the high 10 outcomes for a similar question. In Ahrefs’ earlier model of this research from July, that quantity was 76%.
The remaining citations are cut up nearly evenly between outcomes showing in positions 11–100 (31.2%) and past place 100 (31.0%).
What The Information Exhibits
Ahrefs ran two variations of the evaluation. The primary counted all consequence sorts on the web page, together with advertisements, featured snippets, Folks Additionally Ask bins, and video packs. The second appeared solely at commonplace natural listings.
The outcomes had been comparable. When filtered to natural outcomes solely, 37% of cited pages ranked within the high 10 and 36% fell exterior the highest 100. The marginally greater share of non-ranking pages within the organic-only take a look at suggests some AIO citations come from pages that seem in search consequence options however not in conventional natural outcomes.
Ahrefs attributes the hole to 2 elements. First, its parsing methodology improved for the reason that July 2025 research, which means it might now detect extra of the citations that seem in AI Overviews. That makes the 2 datasets in a roundabout way comparable. A few of the drop might replicate higher detection of citations that had been beforehand missed somewhat than a pure change in how Google selects sources.
Second, Ahrefs factors to Google’s question fan-out course of. When a person searches and an AI Overview is triggered, Google can cut up the unique question into a number of associated sub-queries. The pages that seem most frequently throughout these sub-query outcomes then get cited within the AI Overview.
Ahrefs suggests fan-out queries could now play a bigger function in supply choice, although Google hasn’t confirmed any particular adjustments to fan-out habits. Google did improve AI Overviews to Gemini 3 globally in January, which Ahrefs notes as further context for the timing.
A separate BrightEdge evaluation revealed Feb. 12 reported about 17% top-10 overlap for AI Overview citations, utilizing completely different methodology and a unique dataset.
YouTube Emerges As A Prime Quotation Supply
Among the many AIO citations that didn’t rank in Google’s high 100 for a similar key phrase, 18.2% had been YouTube URLs, in line with Ahrefs’ knowledge. YouTube accounted for five.6% of all AI Overview citations within the dataset.
Ahrefs additionally reported, utilizing knowledge from its Model Radar device, that YouTube is the most-cited area in AI Overviews total and has grown 34% over the previous six months.
SEJ has lined this YouTube sample from a number of angles. SE Rating’s research of German well being queries in January discovered YouTube was the most-cited area in health-related AI Overviews, outranking official medical sources. And in Ahrefs’ AI Mode comparability research from December, YouTube was already essentially the most steadily cited supply for AI Overviews particularly, whereas AI Mode leaned extra closely on Wikipedia and Quora.
The convergence throughout these research factors to YouTube taking part in a rising function in how Google’s AI selects sources, notably for queries the place the unique search outcomes don’t floor video content material organically.
Why This Issues
The connection between natural rankings and AI Overview citations has been a shifting goal. We lined a research in late 2024 that confirmed 75% of AIO citations got here from top-12 pages. BrightEdge reported 54% overlap in October 2025. Now two separate research put the quantity between 17% and 38%.
Optimizing for a single key phrase and rating effectively for it is probably not sufficient. The fan-out question course of means Google’s AI can consider content material towards sub-queries you is probably not monitoring. Protecting a subject throughout associated angles and codecs seems to hold extra weight than holding a single top-10 place.
Wanting Forward
The velocity of this variation is value watching. If fan-out queries proceed taking part in a bigger function in supply choice, the hole between natural rankings and AIO citations might widen.
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