Google AI Overviews position tracking
google_ai_overviewspositionAnonymous
Position records which chip slot a URL occupies in the AI Overview carousel, averaged across samples with its spread.
How it renders
Read from the DOM order of the citation carousel.
Sampling
We report mean position with its spread, because a source that alternates between slot one and slot five is a different story from one that sits consistently at slot three.
Gotcha
Chip order is not rank order and must never be reported as such to a client. It reflects the summary's internal structure, not Google's ranking of the sources.
What the API returns
A single collection call against Google AI Overviews for the position field, sampled n times and returned as one object per prompt.
{
"engine": "google_ai_overviews",
"field": "position",
"prompt": "best ai visibility tracking tool",
"country": "GB",
"language": "en",
"n": 30,
"positions": [
{
"url": "https://nostimates.com/engines",
"avg_position": 1.8,
"best_position": 1,
"spread": 0.9
}
]
}Response fields
| Key | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| url | string | Cited URL. |
| avg_position | float | Mean ordinal across samples in which it appeared. |
| best_position | integer | Best slot achieved in the sample set. |
| spread | float | Standard deviation of position across samples. |
Google AI Overviews position FAQ
- Is AI Overview position the same as organic rank?
- No, and conflating them is one of the fastest ways to lose credibility in an AI visibility report.
- Does slot one matter more?
- It correlates with being the source the summary leans on most heavily, which is worth tracking — just not as a rank.
Track carousel position without misreporting it as rank
We'll set up position tracking with reporting language your client can't misread.
Other Google AI Overviews data
Across every engine
Compare how position behaves on every engine we track.
Position across all engines →