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5 -- average ranking position of ai cited sources for Google AI Overviews (2026)

Name: Average Ranking Position Of AI Cited Sources Statistics
Creator: Lighthouse Intelligence
Published: 2026-09-30

2026 · n=405,000 · Surfer SEO

Among the 52% of sources cited in AI-generated answers/AI Overviews that rank in the top 10 traditional search results, the average ranking position is 5.

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Attribution: Surfer SEO View source

Lighthouse Research Team

Last verified: 2026-09-30 · How we verify data →

Source verified Evidence graded

Value

Unit

Rank

Data Vintage

2026

Entity

Google AI Overviews

Sample Size

405,000

Geography

Global

Evidence Quality

Strong, reliable evidence

Sourced from a well-regarded research firm or industry leader with transparent methodology and a reasonably large sample.

61/100 confidence

Single source - not yet corroborated

Score breakdown

Extraction

Source Trust

Citation Chain

Independence

Methodology

Freshness

Source

Surfer SEO Primary Tier B

https://www.amicited.com/no/glossary/surfer-seo/ ↗

Confidence: 53/100 Vintage: 2026 Channel: Common Crawl

Source Article

Surfer SEO: Innholdsoptimaliseringsplattform for AI og søkesynlighet

Original Research

Surfer SEO · Original study ↗

Methodology

From research analyzing over 405,000 AI Overviews

Methodology documented

Segmentation

IndustryMedia RegionGlobal RoleAll marketers Channelsearch

Cite this stat

Plain Text

Google AI Overviews: 5 average ranking position of ai cited sources. Source: Surfer SEO (2026). Via Lighthouse Intelligence -- https://lighthousedata.io/data/ai-overviews-cited-sources-avg-position-5

HTML Embed

<blockquote cite="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ai-overviews-cited-sources-avg-position-5" style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 16px;margin:16px 0;font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;background:#f0f4ff;"><strong>5</strong> -- average ranking position of ai cited sources for Google AI Overviews<br><small>Source: Surfer SEO (2026) · <a href="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ai-overviews-cited-sources-avg-position-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lighthouse Intelligence</a></small></blockquote>

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