External links inside Google AI Overviews jumped from almost 0 percent to over 25 percent, Peec AI's Malte Landwehr reports

Getting cited inside a Google AI Overview is the difference between a searcher clicking through and a searcher never seeing your name. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable reports that Malte Landwehr at Peec AI has shared a chart showing external links inside AI Overviews jumping from almost 0 percent to over 25 percent, which reverses the direction Google has been moving in for months.

Schwartz posted the story at 07:11 on 23 September 2026 and quoted Landwehr directly: "Google massively increased the number of external links within AI Overview answers." Landwehr shared the underlying dataset on X, and Schwartz notes he was surprised by the finding.

What Peec AI measured, and what to trust

Peec AI's measurement is Peec AI's, not Google's. Schwartz makes that plain, and adds a disclosure that he holds a small investment stake in Peec AI. The 25 percent figure comes from one company's tracking dataset, and the primary source is a Landwehr screenshot on X rather than a Google product announcement, so treat the exact percentage as Peec AI's figure until a second measurement confirms it.

The direction is what matters. Google's own trajectory over 2025 and into 2026 has been to reduce the visibility of source links inside AI Overviews, which is why the Schwartz piece leads on surprise. A jump from close to zero to a quarter of AIO answers carrying a source link is a change large enough that any team pulling Google Search Console data on its own traffic should be able to see it in the last four weeks compared to the four before that.

Why this is the number to watch on GSC this week

A cited link inside an AI Overview is the difference between being read by a person and being read by the answer alone. Under the almost-zero baseline Peec AI shows for the earlier period, an AIO impression rarely produced a click, so a page that ranked well but only ever surfaced inside AIOs was losing the visit. Under a 25 percent baseline, one in four AIO answers on the tracked queries carries a source link, and the click-through math changes.

The check a team can run this week is quick. Open Google Search Console, filter to the top 20 queries by impressions on the site, split by search appearance to isolate AI Mode and the AI Overview surface where Google exposes them, and compare click-through rates for the last four weeks against the four before that. If the AIO CTR has moved from close to zero to something a team can actually count, the Peec AI reading holds up on real traffic. If it has not, the Peec AI slice is measuring a query mix that does not match a given site.

The strategic read carries a caveat too. Landwehr's dataset spans the queries Peec AI tracks, and Google's rollout of AI Overviews has been uneven by vertical and country. A regional or category slice that has not yet moved on the Peec AI dataset can still be at the earlier baseline, and the safest position is to check the site's own numbers before rewriting a content plan on the strength of one chart.

Source

Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable, Google AI Overviews With Way More External Links; Report, 23 September 2026. Peec AI dataset shared on X by Malte Landwehr.