Google Adds More Links to AI Mode: What Site Owners Should Do Now

Google announced on October 15, 2026 that AI Mode and AI Overviews will show more inline links, place them higher in answers, and add more context about sources. It is also testing a dedicated section for official websites at the top of some AI answers. Together with Search Console reports that rolled out in August and September, site owners can now see, and partly steer, how their pages appear in Google's AI answers.

What Google changed on October 15

The announcement from Google's Search product team lists five changes. Two are live now, one is starting to roll out, and two are tests:

Preferred Sources is the Google setting that lets people mark the news sites they want to see more often. Google says the number of people using it has grown more than seven times since the start of 2026, so asking loyal readers to add your site is now a concrete step, not a vanity request.

The measuring tools arrived first

The link changes matter more because you can now measure them. Over seven weeks Google gave every site owner the same reporting and controls in Search Console, the free Google tool that shows how your site performs in search:

The generative AI performance report counts impressions, meaning how often a link to your site was shown in AI Overviews or AI Mode. You can split it by page, country, date and device. If the report does not appear for you, Google says your site probably has not had enough AI impressions yet, or it has been excluded.

The multimodal filter covers searches that start with a picture: Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google, and Chrome's right-click option to search an image. For shops, restaurants and anyone with products people photograph, this is the first clean look at that traffic.

What to do this week

Set aside 30 minutes. Most of this is checking, not changing.

Search Console lets you export both reports. An AI assistant can turn the export into a short action list in a few minutes:

I attached two exports from Google Search Console for [YOUR WEBSITE]: the generative AI performance report and the regular search performance report, both by page, for the last 3 months.
1. List the 10 pages with the most AI impressions and their share of total impressions.
2. Flag pages that get many AI impressions but few regular clicks, and pages that do the opposite.
3. For the top 5 pages, suggest one concrete improvement each, such as a clearer answer near the top, a table, or better images.
Do not invent numbers. If a figure is missing from the files, say so.

If you would rather have an AI agent work through the files for you, our guide to Claude Code for non-developers shows how that works on files in a folder. And if your site needs basic fixes first, start with our guide to building a website with AI, which covers the SEO basics.

What to watch next

• The two tests. If the official-site section ships widely, sites that are the real source for a task (a booking page, a support page, a form) should gain visibility at the top of AI answers.
• Clicks, not just impressions. The generative AI report counts impressions only. Whether more inline links turn into more visits is something you will have to measure in your own analytics.
• Rollout pace. Google gave no country list for the news carousel expansion, only "additional locations and languages globally". Check your own reports each month.