Google AI Overview Citation Share - February 2026

The top 16 websites Google AI Overview cited most in February 2026, ranked by share of all citations, with notes for SEO teams working on generative engine optimization (GEO).

Klaas Foppen·March 2, 2026

The Most Cited Domains on Google AI Overviews in February 2026

Based on prompts and citations tracked from Jan 31 - Feb 27, 2026. Citations are tracked from search responses using Google AI Overviews (inline/side panel).

What this means for you

February's chart is led by YouTube at 2.25% and Reddit at 1.65%, with google.com itself third at 0.74%. Because AI Overviews are built on top of classic Google Search, this ranking is essentially Google's trust hierarchy made visible: video first, community discussion second, then professional and social networks (LinkedIn 0.70%, Facebook 0.69%).

The curve is shallow compared to ChatGPT's Reddit-heavy pattern: after the top five, every domain sits below 0.4%, and review and reference sites like G2 (0.18%), Gartner (0.15%) and Wikipedia (0.09%) hold small but stable slices. Citation share here is a long-tail game, not a winner-takes-all one.

How to act on it

• Invest in the surfaces Google already owns or trusts: a YouTube channel covering your core topics and well-ranked pages on your own site are the two most reliable routes into AI Overview citations.
• Cover the community angle. Reddit at 1.65% shows Google's AI layer values discussion threads. Monitor the subreddits where your category is debated and make sure the facts about your product there are accurate and current.
• Benchmark your own citation share against these numbers: if a niche player like G2 (0.18%) or Gartner (0.15%) makes the chart, a strong specialized site in your vertical can realistically earn comparable visibility.

Google AI Overview Citation Share January vs February 2026

Side-by-side comparison of citation share for the top domains on Google AI Overview between January and February 2026.

What this means for you

The standout move from January to February is google.com doubling its own citation share from 0.37% to 0.74%: Google citing Google. The two leaders barely moved (YouTube 2.32% to 2.25%, Reddit 1.69% to 1.65%), while LinkedIn (0.63% to 0.70%), Facebook (0.63% to 0.69%) and Instagram (0.18% to 0.23%) all inched up. On the losing side, commerce domains slipped: Amazon fell from 0.13% to 0.08% and Shopify from 0.13% to 0.06%, a sign that AI Overviews leaned more on social and Google-owned sources and less on shopping destinations this month.

How to act on it

• Recheck how your brand appears in Google's own surfaces (Business Profile, Maps, and support content), because google.com doubling its share means Google is increasingly citing itself, and those listings are content you control.
• If you sell products, don't rely on marketplace listings for AI visibility: Amazon (0.13% to 0.08%) and Shopify (0.13% to 0.06%) both roughly halved. Product guides and comparison content on your own domain are the safer bet.
• Set up a monthly cadence for tracking these shifts: a domain's share can double or halve within four weeks, and February's movers won't necessarily be March's.

How we collect this data

We collect millions of prompt responses, citations, and click data from the actual user interfaces of major AI platforms: over 26 billion data points and growing. This gives us one of the largest datasets on how AI search engines cite sources and recommend brands.

Real UI monitoring

Data straight from the interfaces of ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, AI Overviews, and more.

26B+ data points

Over 26 billion analyzed citations, prompts, and responses, one of the largest AI search datasets available.

Continuously updated

Refreshed constantly so the trends you see reflect the latest behavior of AI search engines.

Aggregated & public

Published freely for the GEO community, based on aggregated, non-identifiable trends.