One of the main questions I hear these days from marketing and SEO experts is:
How do I track links and citations on Google AI Overviews?
The reality is, it’s not that easy. And that’s why we built Otterly in the first place: to give you an easy way to track links and citations in those AI search experiences — more on that later.
Do blue links still matter?
Today, with so many zero-click searches on Google, people are asking if tracking links is worth the time and money. While I think it’s really important to keep track of your brand on these new AI search experiences, we can’t ignore how much organic traffic still matters. For many B2B companies, organic traffic is one of the best ways to get visitors, leads, and sales, according to analytics and CRM data.
Organic traffic matters a lot to us, and so do blue links. So what is the whole zero-click thing about?
Zero-click searches are defined as those that end without clicking on any of the results presented. It includes searches that end with the searcher satisfied, frustrated, or changing their search to perform a new one. In the United States, just under 60% of mobile web and desktop searches in Datos’ panel ended this way.
(…)
Equally concerning, especially for those worried about Google’s monopoly power to self-preference their own properties in the results, is that almost 30% of all clicks go to platforms Google owns. YouTube, Google Images, Google Maps, Google Flights, Google Hotels, the Google App Store, and dozens more means that Google gets even more monetization and sector-dominating power from their search engine.
That leaves us (as businesses and website providers) with an ever-decreasing piece of the pie.
So, let’s jump right in.
How to track links on Google AI Overviews with Otterly.AI
We are showing you how you can track links on Google AI Overviews and Perplexity. Everything is fully automated, and setting everything up will take you less than 7 minutes. All you need is an Otterly.AI account, which you can create for free.
First things first: You need to add the keywords and prompts to your Otterly.AI account. Simply add the search queries — either one by one or in bulk — to your Otterly Monitoring View.
Once you’ve done that, it will take about 4 minutes (for the first time) for all the data to be populated. As you can see in the screenshot below, I’ve added 3 keywords, and in that overview, I already see the number of sources and links per keyword and AI search platform.
Link Tracking on Google AI Overviews
As we see an AI Overview triggered for our keyword “Top Sports Brands,” I’d like to dive deeper and track all the links cited and referenced on Google AI Overviews.
In the detailed keyword view within your Otterly.AI account, you can analyze the answer and response in more detail. You’ll see the text output, a screenshot, and the different brand mentions.
One of the key things you are interested in now are the blue links. Otterly provides an overview of all links cited and referenced, including:
- Link Position
- Title Text of Link
- Domain
…and once you click on a link, you can review the respective pages and content yourself.
Weekly Link Tracking of AI Overviews citations
One of the great things about Otterly.AI is its weekly link tracking feature. Yes, you can use Otterly once to see all the AI Overview links from specific search queries. However, the real insights happen with its automated weekly link tracking. In that view, you can see weekly changes in link position or even new links appearing and existing ones disappearing from a Google AI Overview.
Pro tip: Once you click on a specific domain, you can also hide certain links in that view. This is particularly handy if you want to, for example, just analyze your own links.
Analyze Google AI Overview Links
Once you got some insights on each search query and which links are being cited and referenced, you might want to analyze all links across all your keywords. Simply head over to the Analyze & export Source Links section in Otterly.AI.
Here you get a great view on the total number of link mentions per URL. This is a great way to understand which URLs are cited particularly often within Google AI Overviews.
Export Links of Google AI Overviews
Last but not least. You might want to dive deeper or process that link data even further. You can do so, by exporting all link citations and references. Simply hit the EXPORT button in the same section “Analytics Sources Links“.
Get started with Otterly’s Google AI Overview Tracking today
Otterly.AI makes it easy to track links and mentions on Google AI Overviews. It gives you weekly insights and detailed analysis automatically. With just a few clicks, you can track AI-driven search results without any hassle.
Start using Otterly’s Google AI Overview Tracking today and make link monitoring simple!