Google's AI Overviews Frequently Link Back to Google

New research suggests Google's AI Overviews often link to Google's own properties, potentially creating a "walled garden" effect. This encourages users to stay within the Google ecosystem.

An SE Ranking study analyzed Google's AI Overviews across five U.S. states. The study found 43% of these AI-generated answers contain links redirecting users to Google search results. Each overview typically includes four to six internal Google links.

This aligns with recent data showing Google users make 10 clicks on average before visiting external websites. This pattern suggests Google is actively keeping users within its platform.

Google Citing Itself in AI Answers

The SE Ranking study analyzed 100,013 keywords across five states: Colorado, Texas, California, New York, and Washington, D.C. The research tracked how Google's AI summaries perform in different regions. While minor regional variations exist, Google.com emerged as the most cited website in AI Overviews.

Google appears in approximately 44% of all AI answers. This is significantly higher than other cited sources like YouTube, Reddit, Quora, and Wikipedia, which appear in about 13%.

“Based on the combined data from all five states (141,507 total AI Overview appearances), our analysis shows that 43.42% (61,437 times) of AI Overview responses contain links to Google organic results, while 56.58% of responses do not.”

Graph showing Google's dominance in AI Overview citations Image Credit: SE Ranking

Reinforcing the Walled Garden Trend

These findings support a recent Momentic analysis revealing Google's "pages per visit" has reached 10. This indicates users click through numerous Google pages before leaving the platform.

This research highlights Google's increasingly self-contained search experience:

  • AI Overviews appear in roughly 30% of all searches.
  • Nearly half of these AI answers link back to Google.
  • Users now make 10 clicks within Google before exiting.
  • Longer, more specific queries often trigger AI Overviews.

While Google still drives significant external traffic (175.5 million visits in March, according to Momentic), it sends fewer users to external sites compared to ChatGPT. Google generates 0.6 external visits per user, while ChatGPT generates 1.4.

Key Statistics from the Study

  • AI Overviews almost always appear with other SERP features (99.25%), most commonly "People Also Ask" (98.5%).
  • The average AI Overview contains about 1,766 characters (roughly 254 words) and cites 13.3 sources.
  • Medium-difficulty keywords (21-40) most frequently trigger AI Overviews (33.4%).
  • Keywords with $2-$5 CPC values produce the highest rate of AI Overviews (32%).
  • Fashion & Beauty has the lowest AI Overview appearance rate (1.4%).
  • Longer AI Overviews cite more sources.

These statistics demonstrate how Google's AI Overviews are changing search behavior and highlight the importance of optimizing for diverse traffic sources while maintaining visibility within Google's search results.