AI Overviews now sit at the top of many Google searches, including local ones like "best physiotherapy clinic in Dubai Marina". Being one of the links inside that answer can bring high-quality visitors. Google says clicks from AI Overviews tend to come from people who spend more time on the site.
There's a lot of advice online about "AI Overview optimisation". Here's what Google itself says, and what it means for your business.
the only hard requirement
Google's guidance is short: to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet. There are no additional technical requirements and no special optimisation is needed.
Meeting the requirements doesn't guarantee you'll appear. It means you're eligible.
what google says helps
Google lists the same best practices it recommends for Search in general:
- Allow crawling. Make sure robots.txt, your hosting and any firewall or CDN don't block Googlebot.
- Link to your important pages. Every service page should be reachable from your menu or other pages.
- Give a good page experience. Fast, mobile-friendly, without pop-ups that hide the content.
- Keep important content in text. Prices, services and answers written in text, not only inside images or videos.
- Support text with good images and video where they help.
- Make structured data match the visible page. Schema is optional but must be accurate.
- Keep your Business Profile and Merchant Center up to date. For local businesses, this is a big one.
- Verify your site in Search Console so you can see problems.
what google says you don't need
- No special schema markup for AI features.
- No "AI text files" or new machine-readable files. That includes llms.txt, as far as Google is concerned.
- No rewriting content "for AI". Write clearly for people.
This matters because some agencies sell these as "AI Overview optimisation". For Google, they aren't required.
a practical checklist for UAE businesses
Turning Google's guidance into actions:
- Check your key pages in Search Console's URL Inspection tool. They should say "URL is on Google".
- Give each service its own page, with the service and area in the heading, for example "Teeth whitening in Al Barsha".
- Start each page with a two-sentence answer: what it is, who it's for, what it costs or how it works.
- Add an FAQ with the questions customers actually ask on WhatsApp.
- Complete your Google Business Profile: services, hours, photos, area, and replies to reviews.
- Remove anything that blocks bots: aggressive firewall settings, or pages only available after a pop-up.
how to control what google shows
If there's content you don't want shown in AI Overviews, the same controls as normal Search apply: the nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet robots settings, or noindex to remove a page entirely. Google-Extended controls separate uses of your content in Google's other AI systems.
how to measure it
Traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is included in your Search Console Performance report under the "Web" search type, together with normal search traffic. Track conversions and time on site in Google Analytics to see whether those visitors become customers.
the bottom line
There's no secret AI Overview trick. Be indexed, be clear, keep your Business Profile current, and answer real questions well. That's also what wins in ChatGPT and Perplexity, which is why we treat them together in our AEO & GEO service.
Not sure where you stand? Run the AI visibility check first.