66.2% of Google AI Overviews with sources link to at least one Google-owned website, such as YouTube or a Google Shopping page, and Google's own properties take 27.2% of every source link the AI Overviews show.
Analysis of 7,505 AI Overviews and 55,442 citations · Google search results, September 2026
Key Findings
- 1.66.2% of Google AI Overviews with sources link to at least one Google-owned website, and 62% do so on mobile.
- 2.Google-owned websites receive 27.2% of all citations in Google AI Overviews, more than one in every four source links.
- 3.YouTube alone receives 14.8% of all Google AI Overview citations, and google.com, mostly Google Shopping product cards, receives 12.1%.
- 4.Leaving out google.com links, 55.3% of Google AI Overviews still cite YouTube or another Google property.
- 5.Google AI Overviews for roofing searches link to a Google-owned website 98.2% of the time, against 24.9% for real estate searches.
Summary
Search Google for "how to fix a leaking roof" and the AI Overview at the top of the page answers with a short summary and a row of sources. One of those sources is very often a YouTube video, and for product searches a Google Shopping card. Both are Google properties.
The sources in an AI Overview are among the most visible links on the results page, and each answer carries a handful of them. Every one that goes to a Google property is one fewer for an independent publisher or business. For anyone trying to earn traffic from AI Overviews, the share that goes to Google properties defines how much room is left.
Two in three AI Overviews, 66.2%, link to at least one Google-owned website, and Google properties take 27.2% of all their citations. Almost all of that goes to YouTube and to Google Shopping and search pages on google.com.
What we measured
The study covers Google US results for 20,000 commercial and service keywords, across industries from roofing to banking, collected on September 23, 2026 through a licensed search data provider. We recorded the sources of every AI Overview on the desktop results: 7,505 AI Overviews and 55,442 citations. We repeated the check on mobile results for the first 10,000 keywords.
An AI Overview is the AI-written summary Google shows above its regular results. A citation is one source link in that summary. A website counts as Google-owned when it is YouTube, google.com or another Google address such as support.google.com or play.google.com. An industry's rate is the share of its AI Overviews that cite at least one Google-owned website.
Two in three AI Overviews link back to Google
The pattern holds on phones: 62% of mobile AI Overviews link to a Google property. And it does not depend on shopping cards. Leave out every google.com link, most of which are Google Shopping product cards and links to other Google searches, and 55.3% of AI Overviews still cite YouTube or another Google property.
That makes YouTube the largest source of Google-owned citations. A searcher who clicks a source in an AI Overview has a better than even chance of being offered a Google-owned page among the options, and in more than half of AI Overviews that page is a video or a Google help or product page rather than a shopping card.
YouTube and Google Shopping supply almost all Google-owned citations
Of the 15,101 citations that go to Google-owned websites, YouTube supplies 8,220 and google.com 6,684. Every other Google property combined, from Google Support to the Play Store, adds 197. Google's AI answers link to its video platform and its own shopping and search pages, not to its long list of product websites.
Source: Suff Digital analysis of 7,505 AI Overviews and 55,442 citations · Google search results, September 2026
YouTube's 14.8% means about one in seven AI Overview source links is a YouTube video. For a business, that is an opening as much as a threat: anyone can publish on YouTube, so a well-made video on your own channel can be the Google-owned link in the answer.
Home services AI Overviews link to Google almost every time
The rate swings widely by industry. AI Overviews for roofing searches link to a Google-owned website 98.2% of the time, home remodeling 96.6%, HVAC 93.7% and plumbing 92.3%. In these trades, YouTube videos are the main reason: searchers want to see a repair or an installation, and Google answers with video.
Source: Suff Digital analysis of 7,505 AI Overviews and 55,442 citations · Google search results, September 2026
Money and property searches sit at the other end. Real estate AI Overviews cite a Google property 24.9% of the time, accounting 37.9%, mortgage 38.7% and banking 38.9%. In these answers, independent websites hold far more of the source links. The table covers industries with at least 100 AI Overviews with sources.
What this means for publishers and business owners
If you work in a trade where AI Overviews lean on YouTube, such as roofing, remodeling, HVAC or plumbing, make video part of your search plan. Short, clear videos that show a common repair, explain a cost or walk through an installation are exactly what Google cites, and they carry your name into the answer even when the link belongs to Google.
If you sell products, the google.com links are mostly Google Shopping cards. Keep your Merchant Center product feed complete and accurate, with correct prices, stock and images, so your products can appear in those cards. In finance and real estate, where AI Overviews cite Google properties far less, the source links are open to strong independent pages. An ai seo company can show which sources your industry's AI Overviews cite and where your business can take a place among them.
Embed this research
Paste this on your site to embed the charts. It links back to the source automatically.
<iframe id="sd-ai-overviews-cite-google-owned-sites" src="https://www.suffdigital.com/embed/data-studies/ai-overviews-cite-google-owned-sites" width="100%" height="600" style="width:100%;border:1px solid #E5E7EB;border-radius:12px" loading="lazy" title="Google Cites Google: AI Overviews Link to Google-Owned Sites in 66.2% of Answers - Suff Digital"></iframe>
<script>window.addEventListener("message",function(e){if(e&&e.data&&e.data.sdEmbed==="ai-overviews-cite-google-owned-sites"&&e.data.height){var f=document.getElementById("sd-ai-overviews-cite-google-owned-sites");if(f){f.style.height=e.data.height+"px";}}});</script>
<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-overviews-cite-google-owned-sites">Google Cites Google: AI Overviews Link to Google-Owned Sites in 66.2% of Answers - Suff Digital</a></p>
Cite this study
Suff Digital. (2026). Google Cites Google: AI Overviews Link to Google-Owned Sites in 66.2% of Answers. https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-overviews-cite-google-owned-sites
Google Cites Google: AI Overviews Link to Google-Owned Sites in 66.2% of Answers - Suff Digital - https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-overviews-cite-google-owned-sites
Frequently asked questions
Related studies
- AI SEO54.9% of Google's AI Overviews Cite at Least One YouTube Video
- AI SEOGoogle Now Shows an AI Answer on 57.6% of Commercial Searches
- AI SEOGoogle Pushes Every Website Listing Off the First Screen on 40.2% of Phone Searches
- AI SEOYouTube Tops AI Citations: Google's AI Cites It 6,894 Times vs 5 for ChatGPT