Google AI Overviews caught linking back to its own search results

Google is testing placing special and very clickable links in its AI Overviwws, but not to publishers or your own website, but rather back to its own search results. You got that right, Google is testing linking the AI Overviews back to new search queries on Google.com.

What it looks like. I posted a screenshot and video from Sachin Patel who spotted this change on the Search Engine Roundtable – here they are:

Clicking on those underlined links in the text of the AI Overview, both at the top and in the middle section, will take you back to a new Google Search. The smaller link icons take you to the side panel links, those go to publishers and external websites.

Here is a video:

Why we care. All that talk, even recently with Google’s new AI Mode, around “prominently surfaces relevant links to help people find web pages and content they may not have discovered before,” and I quoted that from Google, means what here?

Those link icons in AI Overviews have shown to result in a drop in CTR from Google Search to external websites. We’ve seen a large company sue Google over traffic drops due to AI Overviews.

These links back to Google results in Google search volume growing, but do they actually help the searcher or they only help Google’s bottom line.

What about Google saying they value independent publishers and are prioritizing ways to send traffic to publishers in AI Overviews?