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Google AI Overview tracking: is your domain cited, at which rank, and what changed?

For many searches Google answers with an AI Overview and a panel of cited sources. The Google AI Overview Tracker checks your keywords and returns, per keyword: whether an AI Overview appears, the full answer, every cited source with its full URL (where Google links a page), whether it cites your domain or your competitors and at which citation rank, and what changed since your last run — citations gained and lost, and "cited in 3 of the last 5 runs". 50 countries, 26 interface languages, batch keyword lists. No Google account, no API key, no browser.

Who it's for

• SEO and GEO agencies reporting AI Overview visibility per client and per keyword.
• In-house SEO and content teams looking for content gaps: keywords where Google answers with a competitor's page.
• Tools that report AI search visibility and need the AI Overview, its sources and their order as structured data.

What you get: one row per keyword

A real row from a test run on 2026-09-30 — how to stop snoring, US, target mayoclinic.org, competitors clevelandclinic.org and webmd.com, second run of the same tracking ID (trimmed: 1 of 10 sources shown, answer shortened):

{
  "keyword": "how to stop snoring",
  "country": "us",
  "language": "en",
  "checkStatus": "ok",
  "overviewState": "present",
  "targetDomains": ["mayoclinic.org"],
  "targetState": "cited",
  "targetRank": 7,
  "targetPanelRank": 1,
  "targetNamedInText": true,
  "targetCitedUrls": ["https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/snoring/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20377701"],
  "competitorsCited": ["clevelandclinic.org", "webmd.com"],
  "competitors": [
    { "domain": "clevelandclinic.org", "cited": true, "rank": 1, "panelRank": 3, "namedInText": true },
    { "domain": "webmd.com", "cited": true, "rank": 4, "panelRank": 6, "namedInText": false }
  ],
  "sourcesCount": 10,
  "sources": [
    { "rank": 7, "panelRank": 1, "namedInText": true, "title": "Snoring - Diagnosis and treatment - Mayo Clinic", "domain": "mayoclinic.org", "url": "https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/snoring/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20377701", "type": "page", "matches": "target" }
  ],
  "answerText": "To stop snoring, change your sleep position, avoid alcohol before bed, and treat nasal congestion. …",
  "answerHash": "0fa06f8b405a8a76",
  "changeStatus": "unchanged",
  "targetChange": "still_cited",
  "targetCitedInLastRuns": "2/2",
  "checkedAt": "2026-09-30T21:49:58.748Z"
}

How it works

• One Google search per keyword, through Apify's Google SERP proxy, from the country and language you choose; five keywords run in parallel.
• The answer is read in full. Google puts a large part of the AI Overview at the end of the page and moves it into place with JavaScript: on 58 of 58 pages saved from platform test runs, 14–79% of the answer text sat there (median 53%). The tracker reads those parts too; a parser that skips them loses about half of the answer.
• Sources get their real URLs. Google links most sources through redirect tokens; with resolveSourceUrls on, each token is turned into the real page URL with one short request. The cited pages themselves are never visited.
• Your domain and competitors match by domain, subdomains included — semrush.com matches www.semrush.com and blog.semrush.com.
• Nothing is dropped silently. A keyword with no AI Overview comes back as absent with a note. An AI Overview Google is still generating is fetched again; one that still cannot be read comes back as failed with the reason, and is not billed.

Citation rank: rank, panelRank and namedInText

• rank is the order in which the answer text first cites a source (1 = first cited). Google shows citations as chips after the sentences they support ("Mailchimp +3"); the chip names one source and hides the others behind "+N", and both count, in the order they appear. null means the source is in the panel but no sentence cites it.
• panelRank is the source's position in the source panel as Google served it for this check.
• namedInText is true when the source is the one a chip shows by name.

Why two ranks: when the same AI Overview was fetched with two different browser identities, the answer and its 7 sources were identical, but the panel order changed (5 of 7 sources moved) while the text order stayed the same. rank follows the answer; panelRank follows the page layout.

Change tracking

Run the same input again — daily or weekly, for example with an Apify schedule — and every keyword tells you what changed since the previous run. The history lives in a key-value store in your own Apify account, one record per trackingId. The first run of a keyword returns baseline; later runs return unchanged or changed with the domains and URLs gained and lost, whether the answer changed, whether the AI Overview appeared or disappeared, and how often your domain was cited over the last checks (default 10, up to 30).

One check is one sample. When the same 39 keywords were checked twice, 16 to 28 minutes apart (US, Turkey, Germany), 8 answers had been rewritten and 1 AI Overview had disappeared. Watch "cited in N of the last runs" rather than a single change.

Input

A weekly client report for the US:

{ "keywords": ["best crm for small business", "crm pricing comparison", "how to choose a crm"], "targetDomains": ["hubspot.com"], "competitorDomains": ["salesforce.com", "zoho.com", "pipedrive.com"], "country": "us", "trackingId": "crm-client-us" }

A one-off look at whom Google cites, without history:

{ "keywords": ["what is generative engine optimization"], "trackChanges": false }

Measured coverage

Measured on the Apify platform on 2026-09-30, mainly in one run of 250 US keywords (questions about health, money, home, tech, travel, cooking, business, careers, products and science, plus 5 brand names):

• AI Overview found for 231 of the 235 keywords that could be read (1 of them without sources).
• Full source URLs for 1,979 of the 1,984 sources that link to a page (99.7%); title, domain and snippet for 2,016 of 2,016 sources.
• Citation rank: 93% of the sources were cited in the answer text; the others are listed only in the source panel.
• Answer text: in a sample of 29 answers, all 337 sentences were found in the page Google served.
• Speed: the 250 keywords took 24 minutes (5 in parallel); runs of 10 to 20 keywords took 54 to 140 seconds.
• Countries tested: United States, United Kingdom, India, Japan, Brazil, France, Spain, Germany and Turkey, each with an AI Overview.

Honest limits

• Some AI Overviews cannot be read in time. 25 of 250 keywords came back while Google was still generating the AI Overview; 10 were read when fetched again, and 15 (6%) stayed unreadable and came back as failed, not billed. Run those keywords again later.
• Brand searches are mixed. Of 16 brand checks across the tests ("facebook login", "amazon", "gmail", "youtube" …), 7 had an AI Overview, 3 were still being generated and 6 had none.
• No organic rankings. When the same query was fetched twice, the page-1 organic list changed almost completely in 9 of 15 cases, so a single check's organic position is not reported. Use a rank tracker for organic rankings.
• No Google AI Mode. AI Mode needs a real browser and fails often on proxy IPs, so it is not offered.
• Google Shopping product cards have no page URL, and list entries in the answer have no site name, only their domain.
• Set the maximum charge per run above what the keyword list needs. When it is reached, Apify ends the run: delivered keywords are kept and billed, but that run's change history and run report are not saved.

Pricing

Pay per event: each keyword checked with a definitive result — AI Overview present, present without sources, or no AI Overview — is one keyword-checked event, because "no AI Overview" is tracking data too. Keywords that could not be checked, duplicates and the run report are free, and full source URLs and change tracking are included. Current prices are on the actor's Pricing tab on Apify.

Related

AI Overviews are one AI answer surface; ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude are others. See how to track your brand in ChatGPT and how to appear in AI search, and the tools in the AI search visibility section. All Google datasets are in the Google data section.

Frequently asked questions

Does it work in my country?

Any of the 50 countries in the list can be selected. The United States, the United Kingdom, India, Japan, Brazil, France, Spain, Germany and Turkey were tested, each with an AI Overview. Google shows AI Overviews only in some countries and languages; elsewhere keywords come back as absent.

Why does the AI Overview in my browser look different?

Google rewrites AI Overviews often. The tracker searches without a Google account from an IP in the chosen country, while your browser may be signed in or in another location. When the same 39 keywords were checked twice, 16 to 28 minutes apart, 8 answers had been rewritten.

Why is rank null for a source?

The source is listed in the AI Overview's source panel, but no sentence of the answer cites it. In a 250-keyword test that was 7% of the sources, mostly videos at the end of the panel.

How do I keep my history when I edit the keyword list?

Set your own trackingId, for example a client or project name. Without one, the ID is derived from the keyword list, country and language, so adding or removing a keyword starts a new history.

Does it report organic rankings?

No. When the same query was fetched twice, the page-1 organic list changed almost completely in 9 of 15 cases, while the AI Overview was identical in 8 of those 9. A single check's organic position is not a reliable ranking, so the tracker reports the AI Overview only.