Ranking in Google’s top 10 is a weaker indicator of being cited in AI Overviews than it was last year, according to an updated Ahrefs analysis.
The study examined 863,000 keywords and 4 million AI Overview URLs. It found that 38% of cited pages also appeared in the top 10 results for the same query. In Ahrefs’ previous version of this study from July, that number was 76%.
The remaining citations are split almost evenly between results appearing in positions 11–100 (31.2%) and beyond position 100 (31.0%).
What The Data Shows
Ahrefs ran two versions of the analysis. The first counted all result types on the page, including ads, featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and video packs. The second looked only at standard organic listings.
The results were similar. When filtered to organic results only, 37% of cited pages ranked in the top 10 and 36% fell outside the top 100. The slightly higher share of non-ranking pages in the organic-only test suggests some AIO citations come from pages that appear in search result features but not in traditional organic results.
Ahrefs attributes the gap to two factors. First, its parsing methodology improved since the July 2025 study, meaning it can now detect more of the citations that appear in AI Overviews. That makes the two datasets not directly comparable. Some of the drop could reflect better detection of citations that were previously missed rather than a pure change in how Google selects sources.
Second, Ahrefs points to Google’s query fan-out process. When a user searches and an AI Overview is triggered, Google can split the original query into multiple related sub-queries. The pages that appear most often across those sub-query results then get cited in the AI Overview.
Ahrefs suggests fan-out queries may now play a larger role in source selection, though Google hasn’t confirmed any specific changes to fan-out behavior. Google did upgrade AI Overviews to Gemini 3 globally in January, which Ahrefs notes as additional context for the timing.
A separate BrightEdge analysis published Feb. 12 reported about 17% top-10 overlap for AI Overview citations, using different methodology and a different dataset.
YouTube Emerges As A Top Citation Source
Among the AIO citations that didn’t rank in Google’s top 100 for the same keyword, 18.2% were YouTube URLs, according to Ahrefs’ data. YouTube accounted for 5.6% of all AI Overview citations in the dataset.
Ahrefs also reported, using data from its Brand Radar tool, that YouTube is the most-cited domain in AI Overviews overall and has grown 34% over the past six months.
SEJ has covered this YouTube pattern from multiple angles. SE Ranking’s study of German health queries in January found YouTube was the most-cited domain in health-related AI Overviews, outranking official medical sources. And in Ahrefs’ AI Mode comparison study from December, YouTube was already the most frequently cited source for AI Overviews specifically, while AI Mode leaned more heavily on Wikipedia and Quora.
The convergence across these studies points to YouTube playing a growing role in how Google’s AI selects sources, particularly for queries where the original search results don’t surface video content organically.
Why This Matters
The relationship between organic rankings and AI Overview citations has been a moving target. We covered a study in late 2024 that showed 75% of AIO citations came from top-12 pages. BrightEdge reported 54% overlap in October 2025. Now two separate studies put the number between 17% and 38%.
Optimizing for a single keyword and ranking well for it may not be enough. The fan-out query process means Google’s AI can evaluate content against sub-queries you may not be tracking. Covering a topic across related angles and formats appears to carry more weight than holding a single top-10 position.
Looking Ahead
The speed of this change is worth watching. If fan-out queries continue playing a larger role in source selection, the gap between organic rankings and AIO citations could widen.
Featured Image: daily_creativity/Shutterstock
