When someone gets an AI answer in Google Search, the link to the original website matters. On 15 October Google said it had increased the number and prominence of inline links in AI Mode and AI Overviews. It is also working on other ways to surface sources, including a test of a dedicated section for official websites and wider rollout of carousels for timely articles.
For businesses and publishers, the useful distinction is between what Google has changed and what it is only testing. More visible inline links are already part of its AI Search updates. The dedicated section for official websites is a test. Google has not promised that any particular site will appear there, nor that a site will gain clicks or rankings from these changes.
What to do with your website
The announcement does not introduce a new markup tag or a special application for being cited. Keep the work grounded in the pages you control:
- Check that your most important service and product pages can be crawled and are available to people without a broken redirect or blocked content.
- Make each page answer a real customer question clearly: what you offer, who it is for, where it is available, and what someone should do next.
- Keep details such as pricing conditions, opening hours, policies and product availability current. Where a claim needs evidence, cite the original source.
- Watch Search Console and your website analytics over time. Separate a change in impressions from a change in actual enquiries or sales.
These are ordinary quality and measurement checks. They are sensible as Google tests different link presentations, but they are not a guaranteed way to get into an AI answer. Google also says it is testing clickable creator and publisher names on some video results, which may matter to organisations publishing original video.
If your team is updating content for AI Search, focus on making the page useful to a person who follows a link. The click is only valuable if the destination answers the question and helps them take the next step.