Google moves inline links higher in AI Mode and AI Overviews
Google is putting more inline links higher up in AI Mode and AI Overviews, one of five link changes it announced on 15 October. Two of the five are tests, one is rolling out to more countries and languages now, and none of them comes with click data for site owners.
Hema Budaraju, Google's VP of Product Management, set out the changes in a blog post. Google's stated purpose is the same as it was in May: make it easier for a searcher to leave the AI answer and land on the publisher or creator behind it.
The five changes
Here is what Google announced, and how firm each item is.
More inline links, placed higher. Google says it has made continued and substantial increases to inline links in its AI responses, and is now placing them higher in the answer in more cases. It gave no figure for the increase. Google says this is launching now.
Official links at the top. For task-based searches where only one or two official sources exist, Google is testing a section at the very top of the response that lists those links with a short note on why each is the right place to go. This is a test, with no expansion date.
A more clickable Dive Deeper section. The related-article links at the end of some responses are getting image thumbnails and a design Google describes as more clickable.
Timely article carousels in more places. The carousels Google shows for developing topics are rolling out to more locations and languages. Google did not name them. These carousels highlight the sites a user has saved as Preferred Sources.
Search profile links in AI Mode video results. This week Google began testing clickable creator and publisher names on video results in AI Mode. The name links to the creator's Search profile, which is a Google page. The creator's own site is a further click away.
Building on the May changes
In May, Google said searchers could expect more inline links next to the relevant text in AI responses, suggestions at the end of many answers pointing to other facets of a topic, and a carousel for developing topics that highlights Preferred Sources. October's update extends each of those.
Google's Nick Fox said on X that the number of people who have used Preferred Sources has grown seven times since the start of the year. Google gave no user count and no detail on how it measured the growth. Fox also said more than 400 publications worldwide are now in Google's News AI pilot licensing programme, where Google pays for enhanced content it uses to build AI features.
Preferred Sources is the part an Australian site can act on
Preferred Sources lets a searcher pick the sites they want to see more of. With carousels reaching more locations and languages, a site that a reader has chosen gets highlighted in more AI results. Google has not said whether Australia is in this round, so the only way to know is to run searches on developing topics in the markets and languages you serve and see whether the carousel appears.
Eligibility depends on one Search Console setting. Google's documentation says a site must be included in Search generative AI features before it can qualify as a Preferred Source in AI Mode and AI Overviews. Inclusion is the default, so most sites already meet it, but a site that has been excluded, deliberately or by mistake, cannot qualify. It is worth a one-minute check. Google also provides a button and a deep link you can place on your site to ask readers to add it.
For a trade, retail or professional services business, that means the first check is in Search Console: open Settings > Search generative AI and confirm the site is set to include its links and content. If it has been set to exclude, the carousel expansion changes nothing for you until that is switched back. The Generative AI performance report will then show which pages already get impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Search profiles are closed to most Australian businesses
Search profiles launched in June. A profile gathers a creator's or publisher's articles, videos and social posts in one place, and can be reached from a knowledge panel on mobile, from Discover or from a direct URL.
As of 15 October, Google's help page listed the feature as available in the US, Canada and India, to creators and publishers with at least 10,000 followers on YouTube, Instagram, X or TikTok, and only through a Google Account held by someone aged 18 or over. The help page did not yet list AI Mode as a place where profiles appear.
An Australian business cannot set one up at the moment. And even where the test runs, the click goes to a Google page first, with your own site one step further on.
Higher links do not yet mean more clicks
Google says every one of these changes is meant to encourage clicks out of AI answers. It has still not released click data to show whether the earlier changes did that.
Asked about click reporting, Google said in a statement: "We're continuing to work with website owners to understand what insights will be most helpful to inform their strategies, and we'll introduce additional metrics over time." That promises more metrics at some point, and clicks are not named among them.
Search Console adds a second limit. It reports every link inside an AI Overview at the overview's single position, so an inline link that moves from the bottom of the answer to the top keeps the same reported position. You will not see this change in the performance report, and that report is only as good as its timeliness anyway, as the recent Search Console data delays showed.
The useful signal is in your own analytics: sessions from Google to the pages that appear in AI answers, before and after mid October. If those pages were already getting fewer visits than their impressions suggest, you are seeing the trade described in the argument that open web content has become free training data.
One more variable to keep in mind when you test. Pro and Ultra subscribers can now choose Gemini 4 Argon in AI Mode, and an early screenshot showed links in its answers too, so the link mix you see may depend on which model produced the answer.
Universal Cart launched the same day, in the US only
On 15 October Google also launched Universal Cart in Search and the Gemini app in the United States. Shoppers can save products from several retailers into one cart, get alerts about price drops or when an item is back in stock, see relevant promo codes in the cart, and check out with Google Pay through the Universal Commerce Protocol or move to the merchant's own site. Launch merchants include Nike, Sephora, Target, Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Wayfair and many Shopify stores.
Nothing has been said about Australia. It matters here because it points the same way as the link changes: Google is building the whole purchase, from saving an item to paying for it, inside its own surfaces, and the links out to your site are the part it chooses to show.
Things to do
Run your core searches in AI Mode and with AI Overviews showing, from an Australian location, and note which of your pages appear inline, in Dive Deeper or in a carousel. Keep dated screenshots.
In Search Console, open Settings > Search generative AI and confirm the site is set to include its links and content. Then use the Generative AI performance report to see which pages already get impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
If you publish timely content, add Google's Preferred Sources button or deep link where regular readers will see it.
Set a baseline in your analytics for organic sessions to the pages that appear in AI answers, so you can judge the change in a month on your own numbers.
Treat the official links section and the Search profile links as tests. Do not restructure content around either until Google says they are rolling out.
If you pay an agency for SEO, ask them for that baseline and for the Search Console generative AI check. Those two answers tell you more about this update than any screenshot of a link sitting higher in an answer.
