Is Your Website Eligible for Google AI Overviews? Here’s What You Need to Know

If you want your website to appear in Google’s AI Overviews or AI Mode citations, there’s one critical first step: your pages must be indexed by Google. But here’s the catch—indexing alone doesn’t guarantee inclusion.

Indexing: The First Step, Not the Final One

According to Google’s updated help documentation, your content must meet the following criteria to be eligible for AI Overviews:

• The page must be indexed in Google Search.
• It must be eligible to be shown with a snippet.
• It should fulfill Google’s technical requirements for Search.

There are no additional technical steps required specifically for AI Overviews. However, being indexed doesn’t guarantee your page will appear as a citation or supporting link.

What Google Says

In a recent clarification, Google stated:

“Just because a page meets all requirements, best practices, and complies with policies, doesn’t mean that Google will crawl, index, or serve its content. Indexing and serving isn’t guaranteed.”

John Mueller of Google also added on LinkedIn:

“Yes, it has to be indexed in order to be shown as a link there. But eligible to be shown doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed.”

In short, Google might still choose not to display your content—even if it’s perfectly optimized and meets all requirements.

How AI Overviews Pull Supporting Links

SEO expert Dan Petrovic conducted tests and observed that Google’s AI Overviews don’t always fetch data in real-time. Instead, it appears that:

“Google’s AI Mode refers to cached data or the existing index rather than making live HTTP requests to your site each time.”

This means Google relies heavily on its index, and fresh content won’t appear in AI Overviews until it’s been crawled and stored.

Why This Matters for SEOs and Site Owners

Even with the rise of generative AI in search, SEO is far from dead. If you want your site to be cited in AI Overviews:

• Make sure your pages are crawlable and indexable.
• Optimize for traditional SEO signals like meta tags, structured data, and page speed.
• Continuously publish quality, relevant content that Google wants to surface.

At the end of the day, if Google doesn’t index your page, it won’t make it into AI-powered search results—no matter how useful or well-written it is.

At Earn SEO, we specialize in helping NYC businesses optimize their websites for Google Search and stay visible in AI-driven results like AI Overviews. From technical SEO to content indexing strategies, our team ensures your site meets all of Google’s evolving requirements. If you’re aiming to get found in AI-powered search, we can help you get there—faster.

Contact us today and make your site AI-search ready.