Google added more links to AI Mode and AI Overviews. It still will not show you the clicks.

On 15 October 2026 Google announced five changes to how AI Mode and AI Overviews link out to websites.

The post is by Hema Budaraju, a VP of product management, and its headline promise is "more inline links" (Google, More ways to connect with the web from Search, 15 October 2026, read on 16 October 2026).

That sounds like good news for anyone who wants to be cited.

But here is the complication. On the same day Google told Search Engine Roundtable it still will not show clicks from these features in Search Console. Barry Schwartz quoted Google saying it will "introduce additional metrics over time" and called the effort to drive clicks from AI search one that "continues to fail" (Search Engine Roundtable, Google Updates Links In AI Mode & AI Overviews Again, Won't Show Click Data, 15 October 2026, read on 16 October 2026).

So you are being handed more links and no way to count what they do.

Step 1: The five changes, in Google's words

Here is the list from Google's post, stripped of the adjectives.

1. Inline links. Google says it has made "continued and substantial increases" to inline links, and will show them higher in responses more often.
2. A top section for the right page. Google will test a dedicated section that surfaces the one or two official pages needed "to complete a specific task or get the exact info you need," with context about why each link is useful.
3. News carousels. The carousels for timely articles are rolling out to more locations and languages, and they highlight a searcher's Preferred Sources.
4. Related articles. The links at the end of some responses get image thumbnails and a "more clickable design."
5. Creator names. Google started testing clickable creator and publisher names on video results in AI Mode, linking to their Search profiles.

Two of the five are tests. Only the inline links change is described as already done.

Nick Fox of Google posted the same list on X and added that the number of people using Preferred Sources has grown 7x since the start of the year, per his post quoted in full by Search Engine Roundtable.

Step 2: The one change that matters for a business

Change two.

Most of this announcement is about news and creators. A dental clinic, a cafe or a tour operator does not live in a news carousel.

But "the one or two official places on the web to complete a specific task" describes a business's own pages exactly. The booking page. The menu. The opening hours. The price list.

Google says this "expands on what we already do today to show links front and center when you're looking to go to a particular site." So the idea is old. The placement inside the AI answer is new.

Google has published no criteria for which page gets picked. We are not going to invent any.

What we can say is what the description rewards. A page that is plainly the official place for one task. One URL per job, a title that names the job, and the facts on the page in text a crawler can read.

That is the same advice NovaTechRay gave in our post on menus locked inside JavaScript, and the same reason hiding your prices keeps you out of AI answers. If the page that books a table also hides the booking widget behind a script, Google has nothing clean to call official.

Step 3: Count links, not promises

More links on screen is not the same as more clicks.

Google's own wording is careful. It says the changes help people "find links to click out and dive deeper." It does not say clicks went up, and it gives no click figure for AI Mode or AI Overviews.

The outside data still points the other way. We collected the three serious studies in what AI Overviews cost you in clicks, and none of them found a gain. A design change announced on 15 October cannot show up in data collected before it.

So we will be fair to Google here. The inline links work might help. Nobody outside Google can tell yet, and Google is choosing not to let you see.

The clicks are not owed, either. A judge dismissed the AI Overviews traffic suits on 1 October 2026.

Step 4: What Search Console can and cannot tell you

The generative AI report in Search Console counts impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device and date. No clicks, no position, no queries. Our walkthrough of that report covers the gaps in detail, and nothing in this week's news closes them.

What it can do is show change two arriving, if it reaches your pages.

If your booking or pricing page starts picking up AI impressions it never had, that is a signal worth writing down with the date. It will not prove the new top section is the cause. It is the closest thing to a receipt you will get.

And for clicks, your own analytics is the only place left to look. Even that undercounts AI traffic, for the reasons in our GA4 AI referral corrections, so read it as a floor.

Step 5: A correction to yesterday's Argon post

Yesterday we wrote that Google's Gemini 4 Argon announcement said nothing about links, and that Search Engine Roundtable's report that Argon shows links in AI Mode was unconfirmed (Gemini 4 Argon in AI Mode).

The field moved a day later.

Google now documents more inline links across its AI experiences, in its own words. That part is no longer a reported observation.

What is still unconfirmed is the Argon-specific claim. The 15 October post does not mention Argon or any model, so we cannot tell you whether paid Argon answers link more than the free default. The Argon post stays up with that distinction, and we are adding a note pointing here.

Step 6: Preferred Sources and Search profiles, for most businesses

Neither is a lever most local businesses can pull this month.

Preferred Sources is a setting searchers choose for news. Google's post says the carousels "highlight your Preferred Sources," which is a display for people who already picked a site. Google does not call it a ranking signal, and autocomplete is full of people asking if it is one. We would not build a plan on it.

Search profiles need reach first. Google's help page asks for a minimum of 10,000 followers on at least one of YouTube, Instagram, X or TikTok, and an owner aged 18 or over (Google Search Help, Search profiles, read on 16 October 2026).

That threshold explains where video citations land. VALORAE Media counted 42,262 YouTube citations against 1,866 for Instagram in one month of AI answers, drawing on Wellows data. If a business is building toward a creator profile, video on YouTube is the platform with the evidence behind it.

We do not know yet whether a Search profile link in AI Mode sends anyone to the creator's own site. Google's video links go to the profile page first, which is a Google page.

Step 7: What to change in your own test sheet

Change two things in your test sheet and nothing on your site yet.

First, record whether the business's link appears inline, in a top section, or only in the end list for every AI Mode and AI Overviews check. Those are three different positions now, and lumping them together hides the one change that matters.

Second, date-stamp the start of this rollout, 15 October 2026, so any AI impression change on an official page can be read against it.

We did not run a before-and-after study for this post. If one appears, from Google or anyone else, we will update the page and say what changed.

The short version

• Read the 15 October post as five changes, two of them tests.
• Make one page plainly official for each task: booking, menu, prices, hours.
• Put those facts in text a crawler can read, never only in a script.
• Log where your link sits in each AI answer: inline, top section or end list.
• Watch AI impressions on official pages from 15 October onward.
• Ignore anyone selling Preferred Sources as a ranking tactic.
• Keep asking Google for click data, because Google says it is coming without saying when.

This is the sort of check NovaTechRay runs at novatechray.com.