A new analysis of Google’s experimental AI search system shows that the company’s answers are increasingly citing its own services instead of external websites.
The study, conducted by the SEO platform SE Ranking and reported by Search Engine Land, examined more than 1.3 million citations generated by Google’s AI Mode across 68,313 search queries in 20 industries.
Researchers found that Google.com accounted for 17.42% of all sources cited in AI answers, making it the most referenced domain. According to the analysis, Google was cited more often than the next six domains combined, including YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, Indeed, and Zillow.
The share of Google citations has grown sharply in recent months. In June 2025, Google cited itself in 5.7% of AI responses. By early March 2026, that figure had tripled to nearly one in five citations.
The study also found that many of these citations do not lead users to independent websites. Instead, they often direct users to additional Google search results or to other Google services.
According to the report, 59% of Google citations now link to traditional Google search results, while 36.1% link to Google Business Profiles. Smaller portions link to other Google properties such as support pages and travel tools.
In some cases, the citation appears as a small panel of search results displayed alongside the AI-generated answer. The design effectively turns the citation into another search experience within Google.
The pattern was strongest in certain industries. In the travel sector, Google accounted for 53.18% of citations. In entertainment and hobbies, it represented 48.74%, while real estate queries showed 30.54% Google citations.
The only category where Google was not the leading source was career and job searches, where Indeed appeared 3.1 times more often than Google.
The findings come as Google faces criticism from publishers who say AI summaries reduce the number of visitors reaching their websites.
Earlier this week, a Google executive acknowledged concerns about how AI search results handle some types of content.
In a public statement on March 4, 2026, Robby Stein, Vice President of Product for Google Search, said the company is updating how AI search results display cooking content.
“We’ve heard feedback on recipe results in AI Mode, and we’re making updates to better connect people with recipe creators on the web,” Stein said.
The update allows users who search for meal ideas to tap on a dish within the AI answer to open a panel containing images, a brief summary and links to the original recipe sites.
Stein said Google also plans to add details such as cooking time to help users choose recipes.
Just recently, food bloggers argued that AI responses were combining several recipes into a single summary without clearly directing readers to the original creators.
For more than two decades, Google search results primarily functioned as a directory that sent users to external websites. AI-generated answers increasingly provide information directly on the search page.
Researchers say the outcome could influence how traffic, advertising revenue and visibility are distributed across the web.
