Google AI Overviews · Machine Relations Index
Which sources does Google AI Overviews cite most?
As of October 25, 2026, YouTube is the most-cited source in Google AI Overviews answers, cited in 24.41% of 1,184 observed Google AI Overviews runs.
A rate is the share of Google AI Overviews's observed runs, across every category in the window, that cited the source. Engines answer different numbers of runs, so compare rates, not counts.
Ranking
Sources ranked by citation rate
| Rank | Source | Source role | Citation rate | Cited runs | Engine's observed runs | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 of 3,304 | YouTube | Search or media platform | 24.41% | 289 | 1,184 | A |
| #2 of 3,304 | Community and social platform | 17.91% | 212 | 1,184 | A | |
| #3 of 3,304 | Community and social platform | 13.43% | 159 | 1,184 | A | |
| #4 of 3,304 | Medium | Community and social platform | 7.60% | 90 | 1,184 | A |
| #5 of 3,304 | Facebook.com | Community and social platform | 6.59% | 78 | 1,184 | B |
| #6 of 3,304 | Gartner.com | Analyst and consulting research | 3.72% | 44 | 1,184 | A |
| #7 of 3,304 | Quora.com | Community and social platform | 3.13% | 37 | 1,184 | C |
| #8 of 3,304 | Forbes | Editorial publication | 3.04% | 36 | 1,184 | A |
| #9 of 3,304 | Instagram.com | Other observed source | 2.96% | 35 | 1,184 | B |
| #10 of 3,304 | Microsoft.com | Vendor-owned source | 2.11% | 25 | 1,184 | A |
| #11 of 3,304 | G2 | Market and company database | 2.03% | 24 | 1,184 | A |
| #12 of 3,304 | Ibm.com | Vendor-owned source | 1.86% | 22 | 1,184 | A |
| #13 of 3,304 | Bankrate.com | Other observed source | 1.69% | 20 | 1,184 | B |
| #13 of 3,304 | NerdWallet | Editorial publication | 1.69% | 20 | 1,184 | A |
| #13 of 3,304 | NIH | Academic and government source | 1.69% | 20 | 1,184 | A |
| #13 of 3,304 | Paloaltonetworks.com | Vendor-owned source | 1.69% | 20 | 1,184 | A |
| #17 of 3,304 | Crunchbase.com | Market and company database | 1.52% | 18 | 1,184 | B |
| #17 of 3,304 | Landbase.com | Vendor-owned source | 1.52% | 18 | 1,184 | A |
| #19 of 3,304 | Amazon.com | Other observed source | 1.44% | 17 | 1,184 | A |
| #19 of 3,304 | Substack.com | Community and social platform | 1.44% | 17 | 1,184 | A |
| #21 of 3,304 | Yahoo News | Editorial publication | 1.35% | 16 | 1,184 | A |
| #22 of 3,304 | Healthline | Editorial publication | 1.27% | 15 | 1,184 | B |
| #23 of 3,304 | Fortunebusinessinsights.com | Market and company database | 1.18% | 14 | 1,184 | B |
| #23 of 3,304 | Researchgate.net | Academic and government source | 1.18% | 14 | 1,184 | B |
| #23 of 3,304 | Sciencedirect.com | Academic and government source | 1.18% | 14 | 1,184 | B |
| #23 of 3,304 | Sentinelone.com | Vendor-owned source | 1.18% | 14 | 1,184 | B |
| #27 of 3,304 | Agilitypr.com | Vendor-owned source | 1.10% | 13 | 1,184 | C |
| #27 of 3,304 | The New York Times | Editorial publication | 1.10% | 13 | 1,184 | B |
| #29 of 3,304 | Arxiv.org | Academic and government source | 1.01% | 12 | 1,184 | A |
| #29 of 3,304 | Cdp.com | Vendor-owned source | 1.01% | 12 | 1,184 | B |
| #29 of 3,304 | CNBC | Editorial publication | 1.01% | 12 | 1,184 | B |
| #29 of 3,304 | Cymbiotika.com | Other observed source | 1.01% | 12 | 1,184 | C |
| #29 of 3,304 | Dev.to | Community and social platform | 1.01% | 12 | 1,184 | A |
| #29 of 3,304 | Devopsschool.com | Other observed source | 1.01% | 12 | 1,184 | C |
| #29 of 3,304 | Experian.com | Vendor-owned source | 1.01% | 12 | 1,184 | B |
| #29 of 3,304 | Pr.co | Vendor-owned source | 1.01% | 12 | 1,184 | C |
| #29 of 3,304 | Shadow.inc | Other observed source | 1.01% | 12 | 1,184 | B |
| #38 of 3,304 | Marketsandmarkets.com | Market and company database | 0.93% | 11 | 1,184 | B |
| #38 of 3,304 | Meltwater.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.93% | 11 | 1,184 | C |
| #38 of 3,304 | Salesforce.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.93% | 11 | 1,184 | B |
| #41 of 3,304 | Atlan.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.84% | 10 | 1,184 | B |
| #41 of 3,304 | Discover.com | Other observed source | 0.84% | 10 | 1,184 | C |
| #41 of 3,304 | Grandviewresearch.com | Market and company database | 0.84% | 10 | 1,184 | B |
| #41 of 3,304 | Milvus.io | Other observed source | 0.84% | 10 | 1,184 | C |
| #41 of 3,304 | Obapr.com | Other observed source | 0.84% | 10 | 1,184 | Collecting |
| #41 of 3,304 | Towardsai.net | Analyst and consulting research | 0.84% | 10 | 1,184 | C |
| #41 of 3,304 | Ubiehealth.com | Other observed source | 0.84% | 10 | 1,184 | C |
| #41 of 3,304 | Zapier.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.84% | 10 | 1,184 | B |
| #49 of 3,304 | Cyberhaven.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.76% | 9 | 1,184 | C |
| #49 of 3,304 | Databricks.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.76% | 9 | 1,184 | B |
| #49 of 3,304 | Forcepoint.com | Other observed source | 0.76% | 9 | 1,184 | C |
| #49 of 3,304 | Guideflow.com | Other observed source | 0.76% | 9 | 1,184 | A |
| #49 of 3,304 | Oracle.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.76% | 9 | 1,184 | B |
| #49 of 3,304 | PCMag | Editorial publication | 0.76% | 9 | 1,184 | B |
| #49 of 3,304 | Stripe.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.76% | 9 | 1,184 | B |
| #49 of 3,304 | Yelp.com | Other observed source | 0.76% | 9 | 1,184 | C |
| #57 of 3,304 | Aha.org | Academic and government source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | C |
| #57 of 3,304 | Allure | Editorial publication | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | C |
| #57 of 3,304 | Cynet.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | B |
| #57 of 3,304 | Gmicloud.ai | Other observed source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | B |
| #57 of 3,304 | HackerNoon | Other observed source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | C |
| #57 of 3,304 | Houndsy.com | Other observed source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | Collecting |
| #57 of 3,304 | Hubspot.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | A |
| #57 of 3,304 | Investopedia.com | Other observed source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | B |
| #57 of 3,304 | Ketch.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | C |
| #57 of 3,304 | Keyword.com | Other observed source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | C |
| #57 of 3,304 | Nebius.com | Other observed source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | C |
| #57 of 3,304 | Nhimg.org | Other observed source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | B |
| #57 of 3,304 | Nvidia.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | B |
| #57 of 3,304 | Stellarcyber.ai | Vendor-owned source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | C |
| #57 of 3,304 | Ti.com | Other observed source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | C |
| #57 of 3,304 | Yotpo.com | Other observed source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | C |
| #57 of 3,304 | Zylo.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.68% | 8 | 1,184 | C |
| #74 of 3,304 | Acorns.com | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | C |
| #74 of 3,304 | Allaboutcookies.org | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Altudo.co | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | Collecting |
| #74 of 3,304 | Aona.ai | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | C |
| #74 of 3,304 | Bairdwealth.com | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | Collecting |
| #74 of 3,304 | Business Insider | Editorial publication | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Coggno.com | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | C |
| #74 of 3,304 | Crowdstrike.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Deloitte.com | Analyst and consulting research | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Farther.com | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | C |
| #74 of 3,304 | Fierce Healthcare | Editorial publication | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Huntress.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Intuitionlabs.ai | Vendor-owned source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | C |
| #74 of 3,304 | Iprsoftware.com | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | C |
| #74 of 3,304 | Mordorintelligence.com | Market and company database | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Osano.com | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | C |
| #74 of 3,304 | PR Newswire | Wire and press-release distribution | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Redhat.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Rippling.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Schwab.com | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | C |
| #74 of 3,304 | Spheron.network | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Tiktok.com | Other observed source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | C |
| #74 of 3,304 | Truefoundry.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #74 of 3,304 | Y Combinator | Community and social platform | 0.59% | 7 | 1,184 | B |
| #98 of 3,304 | Acronis.com | Other observed source | 0.51% | 6 | 1,184 | C |
| #98 of 3,304 | Adobe.com | Vendor-owned source | 0.51% | 6 | 1,184 | B |
| #98 of 3,304 | Aiopsschool.com | Other observed source | 0.51% | 6 | 1,184 | Collecting |
Showing the first 100 of 3,304 ranked sources.
Categories
Whole-window rates among published segments
Each link ranks sources with a published segment in that category by this engine's citation rate across the whole window. A collecting category has no published segment, so it publishes no ranking.- AI Infrastructure
- AI Security & Privacy
- AI Visibility & GEO
- Consumer Finance
- Consumer Health
- Consumer Products
- Cybersecurity
- Deep Tech & Hardware
- Education & Training
- Emergent Prosumer
- Enterprise Software
- Family Software
- Fintech
- Healthcare Services
- HR & Talent
- iGaming & Betting
- Industrial
- Legacy News Topics
- Local Services
- Logistics & Freight
- Martech & Advertising
- Physical Consumer Products (collecting)
- Professional Services (collecting)
- Sales, GTM & CRM (collecting)
- VC & Private Equity (collecting)
Method
What each engine's figures measure
Release mri_score_v2.1+2026-10-25+9c34b2dccc04; methodology mri_score_v2.1; generated 2026-10-25; window 2026-05-10 to 2026-10-25; artifact 9f1a507f84e8.
The release roster names no model for Google AI Overviews.
Google AI Overviews's sample is 1,184 observed runs across 102 dates. The evidence floor is 10 observed runs and 7 distinct dates.
ChatGPT runs. They go through OpenAI's API with web search switched on, using the model each release names in its engine roster: gpt-4.1-mini-2025-04-14 in current releases, while earlier runs in the window were answered by gpt-4o-mini-search-preview-2025-03-11. That is the retrieval layer apps and research agents built on OpenAI's API use. The signed-in ChatGPT app answers with its own models and search pipeline and cites differently: a preprint submitted on 2026-10-11 and not yet peer reviewed found that Google Search and OpenAI's API on comparable models together recovered about half of the hostnames ChatGPT Web cited (48.7 and 50.3 percent on two model settings) and 26 to 28 percent of its exact URLs (arXiv 2610.15382v1). Claude, Gemini and Perplexity runs are likewise API runs with web search, on the models the roster names.
Method note, 2026-09-25. From that date, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews runs come through a different collection path than earlier runs, with no overlapping days, and answers collected on the two paths differ in how many distinct domains each cites. Per-answer figures for those two engines are read within one side of 2026-09-25, not as a trend across it.
Degraded coverage: 5 of 6 answer engines are currently returning citation-bearing answers. gemini quiet (5 of 20 collected calls produced an observation, 25%). Coverage across the window is uneven: gemini returned citation-bearing answers on 140 of 162 observed days (2,197 of 6,962 returned runs produced a citation); google_ai_mode returned citation-bearing answers on 119 of 162 observed days (1,613 of 2,086 returned runs produced a citation); google_ai_overviews returned citation-bearing answers on 102 of 162 observed days (963 of 1,446 returned runs produced a citation). Engines below 90% of the window are named here; per-engine day and run counts for all 6 are in engine_roster.
Cite this leaderboard
How to cite Google AI Overviews
Machine Relations Index (MRI) by Jaxon Parrott, Machine Relations Research — machinerelations.ai. As of October 25, 2026, YouTube is the most-cited source in Google AI Overviews answers, cited in 24.41% of 1,184 observed Google AI Overviews runs. Release mri_score_v2.1+2026-10-25+9c34b2dccc04. https://machinerelations.ai/index/engines/google_ai_overviews. CC BY 4.0.
APA
Parrott, J. (2026). Which sources does Google AI Overviews cite most? (Version mri_score_v2.1+2026-10-25+9c34b2dccc04) [Data set]. Machine Relations Research. https://machinerelations.ai/index/engines/google_ai_overviewsBibTeX
@misc{parrott2026mrigoogleaioverviews,
author = {Parrott, Jaxon},
title = {Which sources does Google AI Overviews cite most?},
year = {2026},
version = {mri\_score\_v2.1+2026-10-25+9c34b2dccc04},
publisher = {Machine Relations Research},
url = {https://machinerelations.ai/index/engines/google_ai_overviews},
license = {CC-BY-4.0},
note = {Machine Relations Index (MRI) by Jaxon Parrott, Machine Relations Research — machinerelations.ai}
}