Glossary
AI Overviews
Google's AI-generated answer block that appears above traditional search results for many queries.
Definition
AI Overviews (formerly Search Generative Experience) is Google's native answer engine inside Search. It synthesizes a response from multiple sources and lists the cited links. Because they appear above the traditional 10 blue links, AI Overviews can dramatically reduce click-through to your site, but being cited inside one is now a major visibility opportunity. Google does not show one for every search. DiscoveredBy measures them as the engine Google AI Overviews, through a licensed data provider that fetches Google's own results page for each tracked prompt: the Overview's text and cited sources, how often an Overview was shown at all (the shown rate), and the first page of organic results beside it, so your organic rank sits next to whether the Overview cited you.
Example
Searching "what is the best note-taking app" on Google often returns an AI Overview that names 3–5 apps and links to the sources it pulled from.
Related terms
Answer Engine
A search product that returns a direct synthesized answer instead of a list of links: Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, Google AI Overviews.
Citation
A specific URL or source that an AI engine links to when supporting a claim in its answer.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
The practice of optimizing your brand and content so that AI answer engines cite you when users ask direct questions.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
The practice of optimizing your brand and content to be cited, recommended, and described favorably by generative AI engines.
AI Mode
Google's conversational AI search mode, which answers a query with a generated response and linked sources instead of a results page.
Shown Rate
How often Google showed an AI answer (an AI Overview, or an AI Mode answer) when your prompt was searched.
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