AI Overviews Google: more links to websites – what this means for businesses

Introduction

Google is updating AI Mode and AI Overviews to make links to websites more prominent. According to a report by Engage, the stated aim is to make it easier to navigate from AI-generated answers to the original content published online.

For a business, this news should be read carefully. It doesn’t just concern publishers or major news websites: it also affects how your brand can be found when a potential customer is looking for answers, comparing solutions or trying to work out which supplier best suits their needs.

We’ve discussed this frequently here at Dandicom over the past few months: although search still revolves around Google rankings, keywords and indexed pages, the focus is increasingly shifting towards AI models capable of selecting, summarising and citing sources for their answers. This is the topic we addressed when discussing the shift from SEO to AEO – that is, from search engine optimisation to answer optimisation.

The point is simple: if Google gives more prominence to links within AI-generated answers, your website can no longer simply aim to ‘rank’. It must become a useful, clear and recognisable source for answering increasingly complex questions.

What’s new: more space for links in AI responses

La modifica annunciata da Google riguarda una maggiore presenza dei collegamenti all’interno delle risposte generate dall’intelligenza artificiale. I link dovrebbero essere più evidenti e comparire anche nelle prime righe del testo, quindi in una posizione più vicina al momento in cui l’utente riceve la risposta.

Google is also trialling sections dedicated to official websites, designed to help people go directly to the pages most relevant to their search. This is an interesting development for businesses, as the official website is once again becoming a central hub: not just a showcase, but a primary source from which Google can draw information.

Why rankings are no longer enough

For years, we have measured SEO primarily by asking one question: where does the website rank on Google? It is still a useful question, but it is no longer enough. When an AI-powered answer summarises multiple sources at the top of the page, the user can access a wealth of information even before scrolling through the traditional results.

In practice, you may appear in the list of results but not actually form part of the answer. Or you may not be in first place in the traditional sense, but appear as a cited source because your content is clearer, more specific and more consistent with the user’s intent. This is where the way we think about visibility changes.

We can already see this in business projects: many searches are no longer straightforward, such as ‘office furniture Milan’ or ‘food packaging supplier’. They are becoming more complex questions: ‘how to choose sustainable materials for food packaging’, ‘what criteria to consider when selecting a B2B supplier in the home sector’, ‘how to market a premium drinks range’.

If organic traffic drops or becomes fragmented, it is often not enough simply to publish more articles using the same approach as before. You need to work out whether your SEO strategy is still suited to the changing landscape of search, as we explored in detail in our article on the decline in Google traffic. Ranking remains important, but nowadays it is only part of the job.

How Google’s AI Overviews work

AI Overviews are AI-generated answers that appear directly on Google’s results page for certain searches. The user asks a question, Google compiles a summary, and may display links to online sources deemed useful for further reading.

This does not mean that AI automatically ‘replaces’ websites. It does, however, mean that the user’s journey changes: first, they receive a brief explanation; then they decide whether to explore the topic further via one of the suggested links. This is why the position of the link, the context in which it appears and the perceived quality of the source become decisive factors.

From our point of view, this direction is consistent with Google’s ongoing work on AI applied to business research and growth. Our participation in the Google Agency AI Summit also confirmed to us just how central the integration of data, content, advertising and artificial intelligence is to digital strategies.

This is where GEO – Generative Engine Optimisation – also comes into play: not just another acronym to add to your vocabulary because it’s trendy, but a different way of structuring content so that it is understandable, quotable and consistent within the generated responses. We discussed this in our in-depth article on Generative Engine Optimisation for businesses and brands.

What will change for Italian companies?

For an Italian company with an established brand, a sales network and an already well-structured B2B or B2C market, this change affects several areas: the website, blog, product pages, press releases, service descriptions, media relations and the management’s online presence. It is not merely a technical issue; therefore, it cannot be confined to SEO alone.

If you sell furniture, it is not enough simply to explain that you manufacture tables, kitchens or home accessories. You need to help customers understand materials, contexts of use, differences, maintenance, customisation and decision-making times. If you work in the food or beverage sector, you need to make quality, the supply chain, positioning and consumption occasions clear. If you are in industry, you need to translate technical expertise into answers that are understandable to those evaluating suppliers and solutions.

Answering customers’ complex questions

AI Overviews tend to capture informative and detailed searches. For this reason, corporate content must go beyond a mere sales pitch and address genuine concerns: how to choose, what to compare, what mistakes to avoid, and what criteria to use when making a decision.

The tone should not become overly academic. It must remain practical. A marketing manager isn’t looking for abstract theory: they’re looking for useful information to help them understand whether your company is competent, reliable and suited to their needs.

Making sources and expertise verifiable

Another point concerns verifiability. AI-generated responses require recognisable sources, and a brand that communicates in a fragmented manner makes this more difficult to ascertain. Up-to-date corporate pages, author profiles, consistent press releases, mentions in trade media and bylined content all help to establish a framework of authority.

Here, digital PR becomes part of the organic strategy, rather than a separate activity. If nobody is talking about your company, if the information available is patchy, or if your website doesn’t clearly explain what you do, even AI will have fewer clues to link you to a specific topic.

Linking SEO, PR and content marketing

The most tangible change is organisational. SEO, PR and content must work together: keywords help us understand the search query, PR builds authority, and content marketing transforms expertise and use cases into useful web pages.

It is an approach that we at Dandicom have developed over time, drawing on 22 years’ experience in marketing and digital communication, as well as long-standing partnerships with companies seeking growth, visibility and continuity. There are no shortcuts: solid visibility is built through a systematic approach, quality content and constant attention.

If you want to find out whether your brand is ready to be found in the new AI-powered search, we can analyse your content, authority and organic presence, identifying the most effective strategies across SEO, content marketing and digital PR.

Get in touch to start working together!