We analyzed 321 unique cited URLs across seven SaaS niches to understand what makes Google choose one source over another in AI Overviews.
Here’s what we found:
Key Findings
- Search intent strongly influences what Google cites. Educational articles made up 70.2% of citations for informational queries, while listicles and buying guides led commercial searches at 37.6%.
- YouTube was the most-cited domain by a wide margin. It accounted for 14.5% of all citations, more than five times Reddit’s 2.7% share.
- Most AIO citations don’t come from Google’s top 10. Only 33.2% of cited URLs also ranked in the organic top 10, although higher-ranking pages were still more likely to be cited.
- Domain Rating has little correlation with citation frequency. The correlation between DR and AIO citations was just 0.15.
- Topical relevance is what matters. 88.4% of SaaS vendor citations came from vendors that were topically relevant to the query.
- Getting cited often means getting mentioned. When an AIO cited a brand’s domain, it also named that brand in the answer 67.8% of the time.
- AI Overview citations are volatile. Google changed at least one source for 52% of keywords when we repeated the exact same search.
- AI Overviews give false, contradicted, and unsupported claims 35.3% of the time. Only 64.7% of the claims we checked were directly supported by a source cited in the answer.
Methodology & Limitations
We gathered 31 keywords across seven SaaS niches: resource management, data collaboration, salary benchmarking, AI visibility tracking, automated eCommerce shipping, and enterprise AI:
- 38.7% informational keywords
- 38.7% commercial keywords
- 16.1% mixed-intent keywords
- 6.5% branded keywords
We then ran those keywords manually on Google three to four times.
For every run, we recorded the full answer text, every sidebar citation in order, where the AI Overview sat relative to ads and organic results, and which brands were named in the prose.
Data collected
- Source: 857 total citations (321 unique URLs) captured by hand from Google AI Overviews across 227 root domains.
- Coverage: US only, Google AI Overviews only, August 2026. One user account, one session.
- Repeated runs: Each keyword was run 3–4 times — 92 runs across 31 keywords to measure AIO volatility (how often AIO changes its answers and citations).
What we layered on top
- Authority metrics: Ahrefs DR, organic traffic, organic keywords and referring domains for all 227 cited domains.
- Organic rankings: The live top-10 organic SERP for all citation-bearing keywords via DataForSEO, so citation could be compared against ranking.
Limitations
- One account, one country, one day. No personalization controls, no cross-locale comparison, no logged-out control.
- Correlations are observational. Nothing here is a controlled test. Domains with high traffic and high citation counts may share a cause we did not measure.
- Small, limited dataset. This study analyzes 31 keywords in specific SaaS niches, so don’t treat it as a universal truth.
1. Intent Decides Content Type
AI Overviews mostly cite informational content (what-is and how-to articles) for informational keywords, and commercial content (product pages, listicles, and comparison pages) for commercial keywords.
Educational articles make up 70.2% of citations for informational keywords, while listicles (37.6%) are the most-cited content type for commercial keywords.
Mixed intent keywords (informational + commercial) produced mixed citations: educational articles (33.3%), product pages (16.3%), and listicles (10.9%).
| Content type | Informational | Mixed | Commercial |
| Educational article | 70.2% | 33.3% | 9.6% |
| Listicle / buying guide | 0.0% | 10.9% | 37.6% |
| Video | 14.7% | 9.5% | 16.2% |
| Product page | 1.7% | 16.3% | 10.2% |
| Comparison / vs page | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.9% |
What to do
Before writing a piece of content, check the intent and analyze what kind of content AI Overview is already citing for that topic.
2. YouTube is the Most Cited Domain
YouTube is consistently the most-cited domain across seven SaaS niches we tracked.
It accounts for 14.5% of all citations, more than five times the share of Reddit, which ranks second at 2.7%.
Perhaps more surprisingly, established review and comparison platforms such as G2, Gartner, and 360 Quadrants collectively account for just 1.5% of citations.
LinkedIn does not even make the top 10. It currently ranks #46, with just 4 citations out of 857, equivalent to 0.5% of the total.
| Rank | Domain | Citations | % of all citations |
| 1 | youtube.com | 124 | 14.5% |
| 2 | reddit.com | 23 | 2.7% |
| 3 | decentriq.com | 12 | 1.4% |
| 4 | guideflow.com | 11 | 1.3% |
| 5 | thedigitalprojectmanager.com | 10 | 1.2% |
| 6 | business.adobe.com | 9 | 1.1% |
| 7 | monday.com | 9 | 1.1% |
| 8 | liveramp.com | 9 | 1.1% |
| 9 | gartner.com | 8 | 0.9% |
| 10 | medium.com | 8 | 0.9% |
More importantly, YouTube presence isn’t limited by intent. YouTube videos appeared consistently across all three search intents we analyzed:
- Informational (14.7%)
- Commercial (16.2%)
- Mixed (9.5%)
When we broke it down into different categories, the most cited YouTube formats were explainer videos (46%), product listicles (29%), and podcasts (8.9%).
| Video type | Citation count | % of YouTube citations |
| Explainer / educational | 57 | 46.0% |
| Listicle / roundup | 36 | 29.0% |
| Podcast / interview | 11 | 8.9% |
| Comparison / vs | 9 | 7.3% |
| Product tutorial | 6 | 4.8% |
| Vendor promo / demo | 2 | 1.6% |
| Conference / presentation | 1 | 0.8% |
What to do
While most of your competitors are still churning out blog posts, start investing in YouTube videos to win some of the informational and commercial keywords in your niche.
3. Only 33.2% of AIO Citations Rank in Top 10
Organic search results and AI Overviews are different systems with different ranking factors.
Only 33.2% of cited URLs also rank in the organic top 10, and 54.4% of top-10 results are never cited at all.
That being said, ranking first in Google does increase your chances of getting cited by AI Overviews.
| Organic position | Cited by the AI Overview |
| #1–3 | 58.6% |
| #4–6 | 41.4% |
| #7–10 | 35.9% |
What to do
Don’t assume that ranking in the top 10 will automatically earn you an AI Overview citation. Strong organic rankings give you an advantage, but they are only part of the equation.
Continue investing in SaaS SEO, particularly for pages already within striking distance of the top positions, while also optimizing your content specifically for AI Overviews.
4. Relevance is What Matters, Not Domain Rating
A high Domain Rating does not necessarily translate into more AI Overview citations.
We pulled the Ahrefs Domain Rating for all 227 domains cited by Google and compared it with the number of citations each domain received.
The relationship was surprisingly weak. Domain Rating has a Pearson correlation coefficient of just 0.15 with AI Overview citations, indicating very little correlation between the two.
At first glance, the data appears to favour the most authoritative sites: domains with a DR of 90+ account for 32.8% of all citations.
But that figure is heavily skewed by two outliers, YouTube and Reddit, which make up 17.2% of all citations.
Remove those two domains, and the relationship between Domain Rating and AI Overview citations looks very different:
| DR band | Citations | % of citations | Citations per domain |
| DR 90–100 | 134 | 18.9% | 3.62 |
| DR 80–89 | 103 | 14.5% | 3.55 |
| DR 70–79 | 172 | 24.2% | 2.97 |
| DR 50–69 | 157 | 22.1% | 3.49 |
| DR 30–49 | 102 | 14.4% | 2.68 |
| DR 0–29 | 42 | 5.9% | 2.33 |
What actually gets cited is content thats answer the specific question directly and sits on a domain with strong authority in that particular topic.
Of all 456 citations traceable to a SaaS vendor, 88.4% come from one that is topically relevant. Only 11.6% are vendors writing outside their category.
What to do
Focus on building topical authority around the areas where you want to be cited.
Cover those topics in depth, answer specific questions directly, and create supporting content that demonstrates genuine expertise across the wider category.
5. 67.8% of Cited Brands Are Also Mentioned
Getting cited increases your chances of being mentioned in the answer.
When Google’s AIO cites your domain, it names you in the answer about 67.8% of the time. Only 32.2% of brands are cited but not named.
What to do
If you want to increase AI Overview visibility, focus on influencing AIO citations.
You can do this by answering the question well on your own domain and getting featured in third-party sources that Google leans on.
That’s why, it’s crucial to invest in both content marketing and listicle placement outreach.
6. AI Overview Changes its Sources 52% of the Time
We tested 29 keywords 3–4 times each, generating 92 AI Overviews and 857 citations in total.
For 52% of the keywords, Google changed at least one citation between identical repeat searches. Only 48% returned exactly the same set of sources every time.
The takeaway: AI Overview visibility is probabilistic rather than fixed. Google appears to draw from a pool of relevant sources, with the exact combination able to change from one generation to the next.
But the volatility wasn’t evenly distributed. The first citation was remarkably stable. For 25 of the 29 keywords (86%), the #1 cited URL remained the same across every run.
Consistency generally declined further down the citation list, suggesting Google has a relatively stable preference for its top source while rotating alternative sources more frequently.
| Display position | Identical URL across all runs |
| #1 | 86% |
| #2 | 69% |
| #3 | 66% |
| #4 | 52% |
| #5 | 52% |
| #6 | 44% |
| #7 | 54% |
| #8 | 52% |
| #9 | 50% |
What to do
When measuring AI visibility, don’t rely on a single spot check. Because AI Overview citations can change between identical searches, one test may give you a misleading picture of whether your page is actually being cited.
Instead, run the same queries multiple times and track citations across repeated tests. This gives you a more reliable view of both your overall AI visibility and how consistently your content is being cited.
7. Only 64.7% of AIO Claims Are Grounded in Citations
It’s no secret that AI Overviews are prone to hallucinations.
So, I wanted to check just how accurate AIO answers are. Are their claims are actually found in the cited sources? Or does Google simply make things up?
To find out, I took 17 specific, checkable claims out of AI Overview passages — product names, prices, feature counts — and read the actual pages they cite.
Only 64.7% of the claims we checked were directly supported by a source cited in the same passage. The remaining claims had some form of sourcing problems.
| Verdict | Share |
| Grounded — the claim is on a page that passage cites | 64.7% |
| Contradicted by the cited page | 11.8% |
| Inherited a factual error from the source | 5.9% |
| Sources conflicted → took the vendor's number | 5.9% |
| Unsupported by any cited page | 5.9% |
| Grounded elsewhere in the answer, not in that passage | 5.9% |
In two cases, the cited page directly contradicted the claim Google made. In another, Google repeated the wrong information from its source.
What to do
For brands, that means earning a citation is only one part of AI visibility.
The accuracy and clarity of the information on your own pages also matter, because Google may reproduce that information directly, including any errors it contains.
The Biggest Levers to AIO Visibility
Based on my analysis, here are three things you can do today to improve your AIO visibility:
- Optimize your content for citations. Answer the questions directly, provide unique information or data, and make key facts easy for Google to extract and understand.
- Start making YouTube videos. Identify important topics where you already have strong written content and create a video that answers the same query.
- Launch a listicle outreach campaign. Get your brand included in the comparison and roundup pages Google already cites.
Or Partner With a Proven AI SEO Agency
If you want to improve your AI Overview visibility without figuring everything out through trial and error, Position Digital can help.
We combine traditional SEO and content marketing with AI search optimization and digital PR to improve your visibility across both traditional search and AI-generated results.
And we don’t base our strategy on vague theories about what AI search might reward. We use data like the research in this study to understand where your brand is missing, why competitors are being cited instead, and what you can realistically do about it.
Contact us today and let’s boost your AI visibility!
