Google has added more links to its AI-generated search results. On 6 May 2026, the company announced five changes to how AI Overviews and AI Mode surface links to the web, spanning inline citations, end-of-response suggestions, previews of forum and social posts, labelled links to news subscriptions, and hover previews on desktop. Google said the aim was to "make it easy for you to connect with authentic voices and explore useful information across the web".
What changed
The update covers five separate link treatments, applied across both AI Overviews — the summaries that appear above some search results — and AI Mode, Google's conversational search experience:
- Inline links sit directly next to the relevant text inside an AI response, rather than only in a grouped list.
- Explore angles appear at the end of many responses, pointing to unique articles or more in-depth analyses.
- Community perspectives show previews of quotes from forums, social media and other discussions, labelled with the creator's name, handle or community.
- News subscription links from a reader's own paid subscriptions are highlighted with a "Subscribed" label.
- Hover previews on desktop reveal the website name and page title when a cursor rests on an inline link.
Google's reasoning
Google attributed the changes to user hesitation over unfamiliar links. "People might hesitate to click a link if they're not sure exactly where it leads," the company wrote, framing the desktop hover preview and clearer attribution as a fix. On subscriptions, Google said its testing found "people were significantly more likely to click links that were labeled as their subscriptions". Search Engine Land reported that Google described the work as ongoing, saying it would "keep testing, learning and improving these features". The company has maintained for over a year that AI Overviews send traffic to the web, and that clicks from AI results tend to be higher quality.
The measurement gap
What the update does not include is a way for site owners to measure its effect. As Search Engine Journal noted, Google Search Console still does not separate clicks that originate in AI Overviews or AI Mode from those in traditional search, so publishers cannot isolate whether the new link surfaces drive additional visits. "Google's language about AI search clicks has changed four times," the publication wrote. "The data needed to evaluate whether those clicks are arriving hasn't changed once."
Independent measurements have pointed downward. Pew Research found that users clicked a result on 8% of searches that contained an AI Overview, against 15% on searches without one, and that 1% clicked a link inside the overview itself. Search Engine Journal, citing Chartbeat data, reported search referral traffic falling about 60% for small publishers, 47% for medium ones and 22% for large ones. Google has disputed characterisations of AI search as reducing traffic and has not published click data of its own.
Wider context
The link changes arrive in the same window as Google's May 2026 core update, which finished rolling out on 2 June 2026 after about twelve days. Third-party analyses of that update reported that aggregators and user-generated content platforms lost search visibility while first-party brand sites and government domains gained — a shift that sits alongside Google giving forum and discussion posts more prominence inside AI responses. The two are separate events, and Google has not connected them.
The open question is the one Google has not answered: whether more visible links inside AI results translate into measurable traffic for the sites they point to. Until Search Console reports AI clicks separately, publishers are left to infer the answer from third-party data.
Sources
- Google — How AI Mode and AI Overviews help you explore the web
- Search Engine Land — Google updates links within AI Overviews & AI Mode
- Search Engine Journal — Google Adds More AI Search Links, Still No Click Data For SEOs
- Search Engine Land — Google May 2026 core update rollout is now complete
- Search Engine Journal — SEO Pulse: AI search links, core update winners and losers
