AI Overviews Citation Patterns
A study of 5,000 buyer-intent queries across 12 industries, and how often AI Overviews cite a page ranking in the classic top 10.
1. Why we ran it
AI Overviews rolled out broadly in 2024 and expanded coverage through 2025. Anecdotes about "where they show up" were everywhere; the numbers were not. We ran the study to answer three questions: How often does AIO appear? Does it cite the top-ranked classic result? And how much traffic does the presence of AIO cost the #1 result?
2. Methodology
- 5,000 buyer-intent queries stratified across 12 industries (SaaS, e-commerce, fintech, health, legal, home services, education, travel, B2B services, hardware, media, marketplaces).
- Queries drawn from Ahrefs volume ≥ 100/mo, KD 20-60, with explicit purchase or evaluation intent.
- Each query executed 3× in incognito from US-EN and IN-EN endpoints; results averaged.
- AIO presence, citation count, and cited domains logged to a warehouse for daily rescanning.
3. Headline findings
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Queries showing an AI Overview | 38.4% |
| Median citations per AIO | 5 |
| % of AIOs citing the classic #1 result | 62% |
| % of AIOs citing at least one result from the classic top-3 | 83% |
| % of AIOs citing a domain outside the classic top-10 | 27% |
4. Variation by industry
| Industry | AIO presence | Median citations |
|---|---|---|
| Health / medical | 71% | 7 |
| Legal | 58% | 6 |
| SaaS | 42% | 5 |
| Fintech | 39% | 5 |
| E-commerce | 22% | 4 |
| Home services | 14% | 3 |
YMYL industries (health, legal, finance) show AIO on almost every informational query. Transactional queries (buy-X, hire-Y) trigger AIO much less often, Google is still cautious about steering conversions.
5. CTR impact on the classic #1
We paired the study with a subset of clients who agreed to share GSC data. On queries where AIO appeared consistently through the window:
- Median CTR on the classic #1 result dropped from 31.2% to 22.4% (a 28% relative decline).
- The drop was fully recovered on queries where the client was also cited inside the AIO.
- On queries where AIO cited a competitor but not the client, CTR fell 41%.
6. Practical implications
- 01Winning classic #1 without AIO inclusion is worth ~28% less than it was 18 months ago.
- 02Roughly 27% of AIO citations are addressable by non-top-10 domains, a real path in for challengers.
- 03YMYL categories should prioritize AIO inclusion as a first-order KPI, not a nice-to-have.
- ✓AIO shows up on 38% of buyer-intent queries, closer to majority in YMYL categories.
- ✓62% of AIOs cite the classic #1, but 27% cite a domain outside the top-10.
- ✓Losing your #1 to a competitor cited inside AIO costs ~28% CTR.
- ✓Citation inside AIO is now a first-class KPI, not vanity.