Position one used to mean the most clicks, almost by definition. Today, with AI Overviews — the AI-generated summary sitting at the top of the results page — a page can hold position one while its traffic falls, because searchers have already read the answer on Google and never click through. That does not make rank tracking useless. It means you must read rankings together with new context: what the results page now contains, and how your page appears on it.
How AI Overviews change the results page
An AI Overview is an AI-written summary, usually placed above even the first organic result, with links to source pages. For informational queries — "what is", "how to", "why" — users are often satisfied by the summary alone and click no further. For buying or comparison queries, users still click more, because they need details, prices, and reviews before deciding.
The result is that the same position one has a different value depending on query type. An informational keyword holding position one in the AI Overview era may bring fewer clicks than before, while a buying keyword holding position one keeps most of its value. If you look only at the ranking number without classifying queries, you will misread both cases: worrying too much about informational terms, and growing complacent about buying terms.
Rankings still matter, but they are no longer the whole story
One point is rarely mentioned: AI Overviews usually cite pages that already rank well. In other words, to be cited, your page must first rank highly and present its content clearly and credibly. Rank tracking therefore remains the foundation: it tells you whether your page is in the candidate group the AI chooses from.
What a bare ranking does not tell you is whether your page is actually cited, or whether users click after reading the summary. So you need two extra layers beside rankings: whether each important keyword's results page shows an AI Overview, and whether your page appears among its citations. Those two layers turn a dry ranking number into a fuller picture.
How to track rankings in the AI Overview era
First, label each keyword in your project: does this query usually trigger an AI Overview? You do not need to label the whole list; start with your most important keywords, check their results pages manually once a week, and note three things: is there an AI Overview, is your page cited, and how much of the first mobile screen does the summary occupy.
On Keyword.help, you track rankings by country and device down to the Top 30, so pay special attention to mobile rankings for this group. On a phone, an AI Overview can fill most of the first screen, so a mobile position one may sit below the immediately visible area. Notes that combine ranking with AI Overview status, kept weekly, will show the real trend: stable rankings but lost citations, or falling rankings coinciding with a new Overview.
Next, cross-check rankings against impressions and clicks. If rankings hold steady while clicks slide over several weeks, open the results page and check whether an Overview has just appeared or grown longer. Conversely, if your page starts getting cited, clicks may rise even though rankings do not move, because users trust a source the AI has chosen. Both cases show why rankings alone are not enough.
What kind of content gets cited by AI Overviews
Cited pages usually share one trait: they answer directly, in a clear structure. A short definition paragraph at the top of the page, a numbered list of steps, a comparison table with clear rows and columns — these are all formats a summarising system can easily lift and present again. Rambling content, answers buried at the bottom of the page, or headings that do not match the question are much less likely to be chosen, even if the page ranks well.
That does not mean you should shorten the whole page. The foundation is still a comprehensive page that answers the topic fully; the short, structured answer is just the top layer that makes extraction easy. A page that is both deep and clearly answered serves both audiences: readers who want detail, and a summarising system that needs a quick answer. Pages that bury the answer in a long introduction, or that answer a different question from the one in the heading, are the ones most often passed over.
Do not jump to conclusions when rankings and clicks diverge
The most common mistake in the AI Overview era is panicking when clicks fall while rankings hold, then rushing to edit content. Before editing, check three things: has a new AI Overview appeared on the results page, is your page still cited, and is the drop happening across a whole group of similar keywords or just one. If the whole group falls together, the cause is more likely the shared results page than your own page.
Another mistake is neglecting buying keywords while worrying about informational ones. Buying keywords usually lose fewer clicks to AI Overviews, and each click there is worth more. When resources are limited, protect rankings for the buying group first, then invest in citation chances for the informational group. If you have not yet classified keywords by intent in your project, you can start at the sign-up page and label your ten most important keywords first.
Conclusion
AI Overviews do not kill rank tracking, but they change what position one means: a good ranking is now a necessary condition for being cited, not a guarantee of clicks as before. Label AI Overview status for your important keywords, note citation status weekly, and cross-check rankings against impressions and clicks before drawing conclusions. For more rank-tracking methods, see the Keyword.help blog and start by checking your ten most important keywords this week.