Google moves links higher in AI Mode and AI Overviews
On October 15, 2026 Google announced five link changes for AI Mode and AI Overviews. Inline links will appear more often and nearer the top of answers, a dedicated section for official websites will be tested, and news carousels are expanding to more locations and languages. According to Search Engine Roundtable, click data for AI performance reports is still not part of the package, though Google says more metrics will come over time.
Five changes, two of them still tests
In a post on The Keyword dated October 15, 2026, Hema Budaraju, Google's VP of Product Management, set out five changes to how web links appear in its AI-powered Search experiences. The first concerns inline links, the links attached to words or phrases inside an AI answer. Google says it has made "continued and substantial increases to the presence of inline links" in these experiences, and it is now launching updates that place them nearer the top of answers, and more often.
The second change is a test. For tasks where the web offers just one or two official destinations, Google will try putting those links in their own section at the very top of the answer, each with a short explanation of why it is useful. Search Engine Journal says this applies to some task-based responses. The third change has started rolling out: the prominent carousels that AI Search features use for timely articles are being extended to more locations and languages around the world, and they also give prominence to the sites a user has picked as Preferred Sources.
Thumbnails, creator names and growth of more than 7x
Fourth, the related-article links that close some AI answers are getting thumbnail images and a design meant to draw more clicks. Fifth, and again a test: this week Google began making the names of creators and publishers clickable in AI Mode video results, sending users straight to their Search profiles. According to the Google help page Search Engine Journal checked on October 15, Search profiles are offered in the US, Canada and India, need a following of at least 10,000 on YouTube, Instagram, X or TikTok, and must sit on a Google Account belonging to someone aged 18 or over.
Google backs the announcement with one usage figure: Preferred Sources usage has grown more than 7x so far this year. We covered the opening of the Preferred Sources button to sites on August 21. Citing Google's documentation, Search Engine Journal adds that a site qualifies as a Preferred Source only if Search Console shows it as included in Search generative AI features. Search Engine Roundtable relays an October 15 post by Google's Nick Fox stating that more than 400 publications worldwide now belong to the News AI pilot licensing program, under which Google pays to receive and use enhanced publisher content for building new AI features.
The link moves up, the measurement stays put
Lifting links toward the top of the answer, and testing a separate block for official sites, makes it more valuable for a business to be the source an AI answer points to. For task-driven searches such as bookings, applications or contact details, an official address shown first could take users straight to the business rather than through intermediaries. Google, however, does not put a size on the increase, and it gives no figure for the effect on click-through rate or clicks.
Reporting does not change. Search Engine Journal points out that Search Console treats every link inside an AI Overview as sharing that overview's one position, so a link that climbs within the answer will not show a different position. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable pressed Google on adding click data to its AI performance reports. Google replied that it keeps working with site owners on which insights would help most and that it will "introduce additional metrics over time." Search Engine Journal adds that the official-sites section and the AI Mode profile links have no timeline, while the carousel expansion is rolling out now.
The sources say nothing about Türkiye, so this section is our view
None of the three news texts mentions Türkiye or Turkish. The new locations and languages for the news carousels are not listed, so we cannot say whether Turkish searches are part of the expansion. Search profiles, per the help page Search Engine Journal cites, are offered in the US, Canada and India. What follows is therefore not drawn from the sources; it is UNALSOFT's own reading.
The open questions, one by one: how large the inline-link increase is and what it does to clicks; when the official-sites section and the creator-name links will move beyond testing; whether the thumbnail change for end-of-answer links is a test or a rollout; and which user base and method sit behind the 7x figure. Our view: whenever these changes reach Türkiye, preparation can start now. A site whose contact, booking and service pages live at single, clear and stable addresses is a better candidate to be read as an official source.
UNALSOFT's take
We read this update less as a ranking story and more as a measurement problem. A link that rises inside an AI answer will not show up in Search Console as a separate position, so the gain only becomes visible by tracking landing pages and traffic sources in analytics. The second practical lesson is about site structure: each task-oriented page should explain one job clearly instead of being spread across several addresses. In our web design projects we treat those pages and the measurement setup as parts of the same job. Because the sources carry no data on Türkiye, this article makes no local impact forecast.
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