Can You Track Your Rankings in AI Overviews?

Yesterday, I shared examples of Google’s “AI Overviews”, rolling out to US users this week.

(In case you missed it, ​you can catch up here​.)

So… what has the reception been like?

SEOs have been unimpressed with Google’s AI responses for the last year…

… but Google pushed ahead and released AI Overviews to the public anyway.

(Despite many examples of dangerously inaccurate information within them, including recommending that people drink 2 liters of urine daily to pass their kidney stones, yikes!)

The truth is, “AI Overviews” are really more of a content scraper / re-writer than true AI…

… and many publishers are up in arms over Google essentially taking their content, rewriting it, and presenting it as their own at the top of the search results.

Because if people get answers directly within Google….

… that means fewer visits to publisher’s websites….

… which means less traffic for ad revenue, fewer people joining email lists, fewer purchases, and fewer potential customers entering their ecosystems.

If the effects are bad enough, this will disincentivize creators to publish content to the web…

… which means Google will have less content to feed their AI…

… and lead to an overall worsening of the quality of information on the internet.

(Unless Google thinks all they need is Reddit, lol.)

It’s also incredibly ironic that Google punishes websites that scrape and spin content, but glorify doing it themselves. 🙄

Turns out, the general public doesn’t like it either.

The Google Search Community forums are inundated with people requesting to turn OFF AI overviews. 👇

And the feedback on X (Twitter) has been brutal as well:

Right now, there’s no native way to turn off AI Overviews inside Google Search.

(Although tomorrow, I’ll share some interesting alternatives!)

Will AI Overview impressions/clicks be available inside Google Search Console?

Sadly, nope.

There will NOT be a specific section inside Google Search Console to track how your content performs inside AI Overviews.

Impressions/clicks from AI Overviews will simply be lumped into the rest of your regular Performance stats.

That’s a bummer, since being able to track how your content performs in AI Overviews would help content creators SO much.

(And also help Google validate the benefits of these search features for site owners, if they really exist.)

It’s possible that SEO tools, like Semrush, will create the ability to track this, since they currently track featured snippets (and Google Search Console doesn’t).

There’s always a chance that Google will add this capability in the future… but I’m not hopeful since they never added it for featured snippets.

Bottom line… AI Overviews are not off to a great start.

We’ll see whether Google decides to forge ahead or roll it back (especially if it hurts their market share or revenue from ads.)

We are certainly in interesting times!!

What do YOU think about AI Overviews in search? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

And stay tuned tomorrow for more info on another feature Google is adding to appease some of this blowback…

Thanks again for being a part of this community ❤️.

Founder of The Unconventional RD