Google AI Overviews and local service businesses

What are Google AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are two separate AI features inside Google Search. According to Google's page on AI features and your website, AI Overviews "help people get to the gist of a complicated topic or question more quickly." Google describes AI Mode as "particularly helpful for queries where further exploration, reasoning, or complex comparisons are needed."

Both features can link to websites that support the answer, and that link is the spot a carpet cleaner can earn. Google also says the two "may use different models and techniques, so the set of responses and links they show will vary." A page linked in one may not be linked in the other, so check them separately. For ChatGPT, Perplexity and the bigger picture, see our guide to how AI search picks a carpet cleaner.

What does Google say it takes to appear in AI Overviews?

Google's answer is short: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." To be eligible as a supporting link, Google says "a page must be indexed" and eligible to show in Search with a snippet. Google's snippet documentation defines a snippet as "the description or summary part of search result on Google Search."

Eligible is not the same as chosen, because Google also says, "Indexing and serving isn't guaranteed." Instead of special tricks, Google points back to ordinary search work: "The best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI features in Google Search." Here is its list, in short:

• Allow crawling in your robots.txt file and through your hosting setup. A robots.txt file "tells search engine crawlers which URLs the crawler can access on your site."
• Link to your important pages from other pages on your site.
• Give visitors a good page experience.
• Put important content in text, not only inside images.
• Support the text with good photos and video where they help.
• Make sure your structured data matches the visible text on the page.
• Check that your Business Profile information is up to date.

Google is just as clear about what you don't need. The page says, "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features." It adds, "There's also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add."

How AI Overviews play out for a local carpet cleaning search

It helps to sort local searches into two kinds. Some are questions about a problem, like how to get dog urine smell out of a carpet. Others are hiring searches, like "carpet cleaner near me" or "upholstery cleaning" plus a town name. AI Overviews are aimed more at the first kind, since Google describes them as help with "a complicated topic or question."

Even for questions, don't assume one appears. Google says "AI Overviews are only shown when our systems determine that it is additive to classic Search," and that as a result they "often don't trigger." The only way to know what shows up in your town is to run the search yourself and look.

Hiring searches still lean on local results

For hiring searches, Google's rules for local results are worth knowing. Google's local ranking help page says, "Local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity." It describes the third factor, prominence, as "how well-known a business is," based partly on "how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have." That page is about local results, and Google doesn't say the same factors choose AI Overview links.

Questions can branch into related searches

Google says both AI features may use a "query fan-out" technique, which means "issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources." Google says this lets them "display a wider and more diverse set of helpful links" than a classic web search. A pet urine question touches several subtopics a homeowner worries about, such as the smell, the pad, the subfloor and whether the treatment is safe for pets. In our view, a page that covers the subtopics your customers ask about gives Google more to find, but that's our reading, not a Google promise.

What can a carpet cleaning owner control?

You can't control whether Google shows an AI Overview or which links it picks. You can control the material Google has to work with, in the five areas below. Three of these areas, your Business Profile, structured data and a crawlable site, are on Google's list for AI features. The other two come from Google's guidance on helpful content and local ranking. All five are standard search work.

1. Pages that answer specific questions

Google's guidance on helpful content says its ranking systems are "designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information that's created to benefit people." Two of its self-check questions fit a service page well: "Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?" and "After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they've learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?"

For a carpet cleaner, original information is what you see on jobs every week. That includes when a pet stain has reached the pad, what a move-out clean for a property manager covers, and which couches you will and won't clean. Give each service its own page and answer the main question near the top. Our content marketing guide covers how to plan these pages.

2. Your Google Business Profile

A Google Business Profile, or GBP, is the listing that lets you "manage how your business shows up on Maps and Search at no charge," in Google's words. Google's AI features page lists checking that your Business Profile information is up to date. Its local ranking page adds, "Make sure your business info is as complete as possible in your Business Profile." Keep your services, service area, hours and phone number current, and see our Google Business Profile guide for the full setup.

3. Reviews

Reviews feed prominence, which Google bases partly on "how many reviews you have." Google also says that when you reply to customer reviews, "it shows that you value their feedback." Ask every customer for a review, and reply with something specific about the job.

A review that says you got the pet smell out of a hallway describes your work better than one that says "great job." Our reviews and reputation guide covers how to ask for reviews and what Google allows.

4. Structured data basics

Structured data, often called schema, is "a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content," according to Google's introduction to structured data. Google's LocalBusiness documentation says you can use it to tell Google about business hours, among other details. It also says, "Google does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results."

So keep it simple and accurate. LocalBusiness markup with your exact business name, phone number and hours is the base. Make sure it matches the visible text on the page, as Google's list says, and keep it consistent with your Business Profile. The AI search guide has a table of the schema types worth using.

5. A site Google can crawl

If your robots.txt file blocks your service pages, Google can't read them. The next section shows how to check that, plus two other settings that can keep a page out of search results or limit what Google shows from it.

How to check that Google can index your pages

A page has to be indexed and eligible for a snippet before it can be a supporting link. Three settings can get in the way of that without anyone noticing. The first is a robots.txt rule that stops Google from crawling a page, so Google can't read what's on it. The second is a noindex rule, which means "Google will drop that page entirely from Google Search results, regardless of whether other sites link to it," according to Google's guide to blocking indexing.

Snippet controls are the third. Google says, "To limit the information shown from your pages in Search, use nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet, or noindex controls." These settings are useful when someone means to use them, but a setting left over from a site build can hide a page you want customers to find.

1. Set up Google Search Console for your website if you haven't already. Google calls it "a free service offered by Google."
2. Open the URL Inspection tool and enter your homepage and main service pages. Google says it "provides information about Google's indexed version of a specific page."
3. Run a live test on any page that isn't indexed. Google says the live test checks "for indexing issues, structured data, and more."
4. Fix the problem, then request indexing. Google says, "You can request that an inspected URL be indexed by Google."
5. Ask whoever built your site whether any page uses noindex, nosnippet or max-snippet, and why.

How to track AI Overviews without fooling yourself

Google says traffic from its AI features is counted with your other Search traffic. In its words, "they're reported on in the Performance report, within the 'Web' search type." That combined number won't tell you on its own which visits came from an AI Overview, so plan on spot checks to see where you appear.

Once a month, run the ten questions and hiring searches that matter most in your area. Note whether an AI Overview appears, which sites it links to and whether you're one of them. Then run the same searches in AI Mode and record those results separately. The AI search guide explains the full monthly check, including ChatGPT and Perplexity.