Google AI Overview Tracker - GEO Citations & Share of Voice

Track whether your brand and domain appear in Google AI Overviews - and which competitors do instead. For every keyword or buyer-style prompt you get: does an AI Overview show, is your brand mentioned, is your domain cited, which competitors are mentioned or cited, every cited source, your organic position, a 0-100 visibility score, and a concrete next step. Built for GEO / AEO (generative engine optimization / answer engine optimization) reporting.

Requires your own SerpApi key for live data (SerpApi's free plan includes 100 searches per month). Without a key the Actor returns clearly labeled sample data so you can preview the output.

What can this Google AI Overview tracker do?

• Detect AI Overviews for each query in your chosen country and language.
• Brand mention check - is your brand name in the AI Overview answer text?
• Citation check - is your domain one of the cited sources?
• Competitor tracking - which competitor brands are mentioned and which competitor domains are cited.
• Full citation list - URL, title, domain, and publisher for every source in the AI Overview.
• Organic context - your domain's organic position and the top organic results for the same query.
• Deferred AI Overviews - when Google loads the AI Overview separately, the Actor fetches the full payload automatically.
• Visibility score and recommendation per query, plus run-level summaries: top visible queries, queries where your brand is missing, and the most-cited domains.

What data can I extract from Google AI Overviews?

Field	Description
query, geo, language	What was searched
aiOverviewPresent	Whether Google showed an AI Overview
answerText	The AI Overview answer text
brandName, brandMentioned	Your brand and whether the answer mentions it
domain, domainCited, domainOrganicPosition	Your domain, whether it is cited, and its organic rank
competitorsMentioned[], competitorDomainsCited[]	Competitors present in the answer or citations
citationCount, citationDomains[], citationUrls[]	All sources cited by the AI Overview
visibilityScore	0-100 GEO visibility score for this query
recommendation	What to do next for this query
organicResults[]	Position, title, link, domain, snippet
warnings[], error, fetchedAt, source	Diagnostics

Key-value store records: SUMMARY (AI Overview rate, brand mention count, domain citation count, average visibility, top citation domains), TOP_VISIBLE_QUERIES, CITATION_GAPS (queries with an AI Overview where neither your brand nor domain appears), and ERRORS.

How the visibility score works

0 if no AI Overview is shown. Otherwise: 20 base points, +30 if your brand is mentioned, +35 if your domain is cited, +2 to +10 for your organic position (top 3 earns the most), and up to -20 when competitors are mentioned or cited. The formula is fixed and transparent - no AI model is involved.

How much does it cost?

• Apify: $0.003 per query result ($3.00 per 1,000 queries) plus a tiny Actor-start fee.
• SerpApi: one search per query, plus one more when the AI Overview must be fetched separately. Billed by SerpApi on your own plan. Leave noCache off to benefit from SerpApi's cache.

Check the Pricing tab for current Apify rates.

How to track AI Overview citations

1. Paste your SerpApi key into SerpApi key (stored encrypted, never logged).
2. Add the queries your buyers search - keywords or natural-language prompts.
3. Enter your brandName, your domain, and competitor names or domains.
4. Choose country and language (AI Overviews are most common for English queries).
5. Click Start. Schedule weekly runs to track GEO visibility over time.

Input example

{
  "queries": ["best ai seo tools", "how to choose a crm for startups"],
  "brandName": "Acme",
  "domain": "acme.com",
  "competitors": ["hubspot.com", "Salesforce"],
  "geo": "US",
  "language": "en",
  "includeOrganicResults": true,
  "fetchAiOverviewDetails": true,
  "serpApiKey": "<YOUR_SERPAPI_KEY>"
}

Output example

{
  "query": "how to choose a crm for startups",
  "aiOverviewPresent": true,
  "brandMentioned": false,
  "domainCited": false,
  "domainOrganicPosition": 7,
  "competitorsMentioned": ["Salesforce"],
  "competitorDomainsCited": ["hubspot.com"],
  "citationCount": 6,
  "citationDomains": ["hubspot.com", "forbes.com", "zapier.com"],
  "visibilityScore": 15,
  "recommendation": "Competitors appear but your brand does not. Build or refresh content that directly answers this prompt."
}

Illustrative output shape, not real measurements.

Use cases

• GEO / AEO reporting - share of AI Overview citations for your brand vs competitors.
• Citation gap analysis - CITATION_GAPS lists queries where an AI Overview appears without you; citationDomains shows which sources Google trusts instead.
• Agency client reports - weekly AI search visibility per client and keyword set.
• PR and digital PR targeting - citationDomains shows the publishers Google's AI relies on.
• SEO impact tracking - see which of your ranking keywords now sit under an AI Overview.

Integrations and API

Use the Apify API, schedules, webhooks, Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, Looker Studio (via CSV/JSON), or the Apify MCP server for AI agents.

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("groupoject/google-ai-overview-tracker").call(run_input={
    "queries": ["best ai seo tools"],
    "brandName": "Acme",
    "domain": "acme.com",
    "competitors": ["semrush.com", "ahrefs.com"],
    "serpApiKey": "<YOUR_SERPAPI_KEY>",
})
for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(row["query"], row["aiOverviewPresent"], row["domainCited"], row["visibilityScore"])

FAQ

Does it track Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, or Perplexity? Not at the moment. This Actor covers Google AI Overviews on the regular Google results page.

Why is aiOverviewPresent false for some queries? Google only shows AI Overviews for some queries, countries, and languages, and it varies between runs. Track a stable query set over time.

Why do I need a SerpApi key? The Actor reads Google results through SerpApi for reliable AI Overview payloads, including deferred ones. Without a key, it returns sample data only.

Is brand detection case-sensitive? No. Brand and competitor names are matched case-insensitively in the answer text; domains are matched against citation URLs and organic results.

Related Actors

• Google Trends Scraper - find rising queries worth tracking.
• Google Autocomplete Scraper - turn a topic into question-style prompts.
• Technical SEO Audit Crawler - fix the pages you want AI Overviews to cite.