In a small study of 8 Google AI searches run from Australia on 2 November 2026, AI Overviews for product, insurance and energy questions cited brand sites, comparison sites such as Canstar and .gov.au pages, while AI Mode answers for local trades and professionals leaned on Google Business Profile listings and a handful of review sites and directories. Yellow Pages, True Local, hipages, Oneflare and Reddit were not cited in any of the 7 AI answers we collected. It is a small sample (n = 8 lookups), so treat it as a pattern to check for your own category, not a law.
Below you get the method, the raw citation list for every query, a tally by type of site, how it lines up with larger US/UK/AU studies, and a checklist of the Australian profiles and directories that actually showed up in Google's AI answers, so you can decide where to spend listing time.
Key takeaways
- Two different patterns. For "best mattress", "cheapest health insurance" and "best energy provider NSW", AI Overviews cited 7-8 domains each, mostly brands, comparison sites and government tools. For local trades and professionals, AI Mode cited 1-4 domains and showed Google Business Profile cards.
- No AI Overview for the plumber search. "best plumber sydney" returned no AI Overview from Australia on the day. AI Mode did answer it, citing ProductReview.com.au, a "top 10 plumbers" list and Service NSW.
- Government sites showed up a lot. .gov.au domains appeared in 4 of the 7 AI answers (health insurance, energy, plumber, accountant), mostly as "check the licence" or "compare officially" steps.
- Classic directories mostly did not. Of the Australian directories, only Localsearch and Service.com.au were cited (both on one electrician query). Yellow Pages ranked in the organic results for the plumber search but was not cited by AI.
- Your Google Business Profile does the heavy lifting for local. In the accountant and dentist answers, the only business sources were Google Business Profile listings. None of the 16 businesses shown in AI Mode cards had its own website cited as a source.
What did we test, and how?
We ran 8 real lookups against Google from an Australian location and recorded every source each AI answer cited. Nothing here is modelled or estimated.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Date | 2 November 2026, one run per query |
| Location and language | Australia (country-level location code 2036), English, desktop |
| Tools | AI Rank Lab's Google AI Overview and Google AI Mode checks, called through our MCP connector. Each returns the answer text, every cited URL and the domains behind them. |
| Sample | 8 lookups: 4 AI Overview checks and 4 AI Mode checks across 7 distinct queries ("best plumber sydney" was run on both surfaces) |
| Query choice | "Best X" searches Australians make across e-commerce (mattresses), finance (health insurance), utilities (energy) and local services (plumber, accountant, electrician, dentist) in five capital cities |
| Counting rule | Each distinct domain counts once per answer. Google Shopping product cards and Google Business Profile listings (both served from google.com) are counted as "Google's own surfaces". |
| What we did not test | ChatGPT, Gemini app, Perplexity, Copilot, mobile results, city-level geolocation, or repeat runs |
Disclosure: AI Rank Lab is our product, and the lookups cost 800 credits. We chose AI Overviews for the product and money questions and AI Mode for the local service questions because larger studies (covered below) show AI Overviews often do not trigger on "best [trade] in [city]" searches, and we wanted every local lookup to return an answer. That choice is itself a limitation: the two surfaces are not directly comparable query by query.
Which websites did Google's AI answers cite in Australia?
Across the 7 answers Google returned, the AI cited 48 links pointing to 29 distinct domains. Here is every cited domain, by query.
| Query (surface) | AI answer shown? | Cited domains |
|---|---|---|
| best mattress australia (AI Overview) | Yes | originmattress.com.au, sleepingduck.com, sleepinggiant.com.au, fortywinks.com.au, cosier.co, youtube.com (2 reviews), google.com (6 Shopping product cards) |
| cheapest health insurance australia (AI Overview) | Yes | health.gov.au, privatehealth.gov.au, canstar.com.au, compareclub.com.au, bupa.com.au, ahm.com.au, hcf.com.au, westfund.com.au |
| best energy provider nsw (AI Overview) | Yes | service.nsw.gov.au, energymadeeasy.gov.au, canstar.com.au, comparethemarket.com.au, iselect.com.au, redenergy.com.au, engie.com.au, lenergy.com.au |
| best plumber sydney (AI Overview) | No | None. Organic results included Yellow Pages, Airtasker, Quora, a Facebook group and YouTube. |
| best plumber sydney (AI Mode) | Yes | productreview.com.au, top10plumbers.com.au, service.nsw.gov.au |
| best accountant melbourne (AI Mode) | Yes | google.com (5 Business Profile listings), tpb.gov.au, cpaaustralia.com.au, charteredaccountantsanz.com |
| best electrician brisbane (AI Mode) | Yes | localsearch.com.au, service.com.au (plus 5 Business Profile cards shown in the answer) |
| best dentist perth (AI Mode) | Yes | google.com (5 Business Profile listings, with 6 practice cards shown) |
Two things stand out. The AI Overviews for money and product questions spread their citations across 7-8 domains, while the AI Mode answers for local services cited between 1 and 4. And the local answers named specific businesses (5 plumbers, 5 accountants, 5 electricians, 6 dental practices) without citing a single one of those businesses' own websites. Where a business card appeared, its website was a button on the card, not a source behind the answer.
Which types of Australian sites get cited?
Brand and provider sites were the largest group, but they appeared only in the product and bills answers. Government sites were the most widespread, appearing in more answers than any other type.
| Type of site | Domain appearances (of 33) | Answers it appeared in (of 7) | Examples from our runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand and provider sites | 9 | 3 | Origin, Sleeping Duck, Bupa, ahm, HCF, Westfund, Red Energy, ENGIE, Lenergy (a solar business blog) |
| Government (.gov.au) | 6 | 4 | health.gov.au, privatehealth.gov.au, Energy Made Easy, Service NSW (twice), Tax Practitioners Board |
| Comparison sites | 5 | 2 | Canstar (twice), Compare Club, Compare the Market, iSelect |
| Review sites, directories and ranked lists | 5 | 3 | ProductReview.com.au, Top10Plumbers, Localsearch, Service.com.au, Cosier (affiliate review site) |
| Google's own surfaces | 3 | 3 | Business Profile listings (accountant, dentist), Shopping product cards (mattress) |
| Retailers | 2 | 1 | Sleeping Giant, Forty Winks |
| Professional bodies | 2 | 1 | CPA Australia, Chartered Accountants ANZ |
| Video | 1 | 1 | YouTube (two mattress reviews) |
| Reddit, forums, Facebook | 0 | 0 | None cited |
A domain appearance is one domain cited in one answer, so Canstar counts twice because it was cited for both health insurance and energy.
Does Google show an AI Overview for "best plumber Sydney"?
Not in our run. The AI Overview check for "best plumber sydney" from Australia came back with no AI Overview, just organic results that included a Yellow Pages category page and an Airtasker page. That matches the larger pattern: Steady Demand's August 2026 study of 50 US metros found AI Overviews on only 21.8% of local "best X in city" queries in its collection, against 75.8% of informational queries (Steady Demand, 2026). The authors note a manual browser check found AI Overviews more often than their collector, so presence rates on local queries are still unsettled.
For a tradie, the practical point is that the classic local pack and your Business Profile still carry most of the weight for "plumber + suburb" searches. Our guide to SEO for tradies covers that side.
What does AI Mode cite for local service searches in Australia?
AI Mode answered all 4 local queries, and in every case it built the answer around named businesses with star ratings and review counts. What sat behind those names varied by query.
- Plumber (Sydney): sourced from ProductReview.com.au's NSW plumbers page and Top10Plumbers' Sydney list, with a tip to check the licence through Service NSW.
- Accountant (Melbourne): sourced from 5 Google Business Profile listings, plus the Tax Practitioners Board, CPA Australia and Chartered Accountants ANZ for a "check credentials" step.
- Electrician (Brisbane): sourced from Localsearch and Service.com.au, with 5 Business Profile cards in the answer.
- Dentist (Perth): sourced only from Google Business Profile listings. The AHPRA register was not mentioned.
How important is Google Business Profile for AI Mode?
It was the single most consistent element of the local answers. Business Profile cards appeared in 3 of the 4 AI Mode answers, and for the accountant and dentist queries the Business Profile listings were the only business-level sources. This lines up with two larger datasets. BrightLocal's August 2026 study of 1,355 business locations in the US, UK and Australia found Google Business Profile was the top source for Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, at about 28.5% of all citations (BrightLocal, 2026). Steady Demand found 79.8% of AI Mode's local-intent citations pointed to Google Maps or Business Profile URLs (US only, n = 40,883 citations). Profound reported google.com had become the second most-cited domain in AI Mode, with the growth coming mostly from Business Profiles and product panels (reported by SEO-DAY, July 2026).
Look at what AI Mode quoted from those profiles: review counts ("4.8 (1.1K)"), the business description, suburb and opening hours. A thin profile gives it nothing to say. Our Google Business Profile guide for Australian businesses covers the fields that matter.
Do Australian directories like Yellow Pages and hipages get cited?
Mostly not, in our sample. Two Australian directories were cited, both on the Brisbane electrician query: Localsearch and Service.com.au. Yellow Pages appeared in the organic results for "best plumber sydney" but was not cited by AI Mode for that query, and True Local, hipages, Oneflare, Airtasker, StartLocal and Word of Mouth were not cited in any answer. With 4 local queries, that absence is weak evidence, not proof that these sites never get cited. BrightLocal's larger study likewise found localsearch.com.au only in its car repair results (30 citations across 2 locations) and did not mention True Local at all.
Does ProductReview.com.au appear in AI answers?
Yes, once. ProductReview.com.au's "Best Plumbers in New South Wales" page was the first source for the Sydney plumber answer, and AI Mode quoted ratings from it ("averaging ~4.9/5") for two of the five plumbers it named and cited it for a third. If your category has a ProductReview page and real customers who use it, that page is a credible third-party source Google's AI already reads.
The other plumber source is worth studying too. Top10Plumbers says it shortlisted from 40 Google Maps results, removed businesses without a current NSW licence and required at least 4.5 stars from 150+ Google reviews. In other words, the third-party page that got cited was itself built from Business Profile reviews and the licence register.
Who do AI Overviews trust for products, insurance and energy?
For money and product questions, AI Overviews mixed three kinds of sources: official comparison tools, commercial comparison sites and the providers themselves.
Do comparison sites like Canstar get cited?
Yes. Canstar was cited in both the health insurance and the energy AI Overviews, and the energy answer listed providers in the same order ("Red Energy (1st), Powershop (2nd)...") as Canstar's NSW electricity page. Compare Club, Compare the Market and iSelect were each cited once. If you sell in a category these sites rate, being included and rated well there may matter as much as your own pages.
Do government .gov.au sites show up in AI Overviews?
Yes, often. Both money answers sent readers to a government comparison tool: PrivateHealth.gov.au for health insurance and Energy Made Easy (via Service NSW) for electricity. In AI Mode, Service NSW appeared as the licence check for plumbers and the Tax Practitioners Board as the credential check for accountants. A business cannot get itself "cited" on a .gov.au page, but it can make sure its registration details on those registers are correct and match its website and profiles, because that is where the AI tells customers to check.
Is Reddit cited in Australian AI Overviews?
Not in our runs. Reddit threads from r/australia, r/AskAnAustralian and r/sydney ranked in the organic results for the mattress, health insurance and energy queries, but none were cited in the AI Overviews. That contrasts with BrightLocal's larger local study, where Reddit and Instagram were the most cited social sources, so Reddit's weight may differ by query, vertical and market. Our Reddit and AI search guide explains when it matters.
What did the mattress answer show for e-commerce?
The mattress AI Overview cited 14 links, and 6 of them were Google Shopping product cards rather than websites. The rest were two brands (Origin, Sleeping Duck), two retailers (Sleeping Giant, Forty Winks), an affiliate review site (Cosier) and two YouTube reviews. Google's own guidance for AI features lists keeping "Merchant Center and Business Profile information up-to-date" as a best practice (Google Search Central), and this answer shows why: product feed data was the biggest single source type.
How does this compare with larger local AI citation studies?
Our 8 lookups agree with the bigger studies on direction, and add the Australian sites by name. None of the larger studies breaks out Australia separately.
| Study | Scope | Main finding | Fits our sample? |
|---|---|---|---|
| BrightLocal (Aug 2026) | 1,355 locations in US, UK, AU; AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT; about 1.97 million citations | Business Profile is the top source for Google's AIs; Yelp second; about 93% of cited domains were individual business websites | Partly. Business Profile led our local answers, but Yelp and business websites were not cited in our 4 local runs. |
| Steady Demand (Aug 2026, revised Sep) | 50 US metros, 10 verticals, 86,645 citations | AI Mode: 79.8% of local citations to Maps/Business Profile. AI Overviews: about 70.7% to business websites. AI Overviews on 21.8% of local queries. | Yes for AI Mode and for the missing plumber AI Overview. |
| Profound, via SEO-DAY (Jul 2026) | 32 million+ google.com/searchviewer instances, Apr-Jun 2026 | google.com became AI Mode's No. 2 cited domain, driven by Business Profiles and product panels | Yes. google.com appeared in 3 of our 7 answers. |
Treat the larger studies with their own caveats: all three come from companies that sell local or AI visibility services, and an independent review of the Steady Demand study notes it was a single snapshot with no released dataset.
Which directories should an Australian business list on to appear in AI answers?
Start with the profiles Google's AI actually read in our runs, then the registers it pointed customers to, then the directories for your category. Listing terms were checked on 2 November 2026.
| Platform | Cited in our 8 lookups? | Who should prioritise it | Cost and access (checked 2 Nov 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Yes, 2 answers as sources, cards in 3 | Every business with a location or service area | Free |
| Google Merchant Center (product feed) | Yes, 6 Shopping cards in the mattress answer | Online retailers and brands | Free to set up |
| ProductReview.com.au | Yes (plumbers) | Trades, services and consumer brands with a category page | We could not load its business pages on the day; check current plans directly |
| Localsearch | Yes (electricians) | Trades and local services, especially in Queensland | Free profile; Localsearch says it takes "3 minutes" to create |
| Service.com.au | Yes (electricians) | Trades and home services | Paid leads: the site says "Tradies pay to access and respond to leads" |
| Licence and registration registers (Service NSW, Tax Practitioners Board, AHPRA) | Yes, Service NSW and TPB | Licensed trades, tax agents, health practitioners | Not a listing you buy: make sure your name and number match what is on the register |
| Professional bodies (CPA Australia, CA ANZ) | Yes (accountants) | Members of those bodies | Only relevant if you are a member |
| Comparison sites (Canstar, Compare the Market, iSelect, Compare Club) | Yes (insurance, energy) | Finance, insurance and energy providers | Inclusion and ratings are set by each site; read their methodology and advertising policies |
| Yellow Pages (Thryv Australia) | No (ranked organically for plumbers) | Worth keeping accurate for classic search and citation consistency | Free listing via Yellow Pages; paid ads optional |
| True Local, hipages, Airtasker, StartLocal, Word of Mouth | No | Category dependent; judge on leads, not AI citations | Not verified for this article; check each site's current terms. Oneflare was retired by Airtasker on 30 June 2026 and now redirects to Airtasker. |
| Apple Business (Apple Maps), Bing Places | Not tested | Everyone with a location: they feed Apple and Microsoft surfaces we did not test | Apple Business invites you to "claim your location on Maps"; Bing Places not checked |
What this suggests for local and e-commerce businesses
With 8 lookups, these are hypotheses to test rather than rules, but they point to a clear order of work.
- Complete your Google Business Profile first. Categories, description, services, hours, photos and a steady flow of genuine reviews. In our local answers, that is what AI Mode quoted.
- Make your licence or registration easy to match. Use the exact business name and licence number from the register on your website and profile, since the AI sent customers to Service NSW, the TPB and similar registers.
- Earn a place on the one or two review sites that rank for your category and city. For trades that meant ProductReview.com.au, Localsearch and Service.com.au in our runs. Ask real customers to review you there; do not buy reviews.
- Get rated by the comparison sites in your sector if you sell insurance, energy, finance or similar. Canstar's ranking became the AI's answer for NSW energy.
- For products, keep your Merchant Center feed and product pages complete, and seek independent reviews (YouTube creators, review sites). Brand sites were cited, but so were retailers and reviewers.
- Keep classic directories accurate, but do not expect AI citations from them. They still help consistency and organic visibility; in our sample they were not where Google's AI looked.
For the wider local picture, including how ChatGPT and Gemini answer "near me" questions, see our guide to local AEO and near-me AI answers. For the step-by-step on AI Overviews themselves, read Google AI Overviews in Australia.
How can you check which sites AI Overviews cite for your own keywords?
You can repeat this study for your own category in under an hour. The method matters more than the tool.
- List 8-20 real searches your customers make, in their words: "best [service] [city]", "cheapest [product] australia", "[service] near me".
- Run each from Australia on both AI Overviews and AI Mode. Note whether an AI answer appeared at all.
- Record every cited URL and domain, not just the ones you can see without expanding the answer.
- Categorise the domains (Business Profile, government, comparison, review site or directory, brand, retailer, forum, video) and count them, as in the tally table above.
- Repeat the same queries on another day. One run is a sample, not a measurement.
- Act on the sources that recur: get listed, rated or reviewed where Google's AI keeps looking for your category.
Tools that help, listed with the same criteria (Australian location support, cited-source output, and cost to run a small study):
Disclosure: AI Rank Lab is our product. We list it first because this is our site, and we've kept the same criteria for every tool below.
- AI Rank Lab. The AI Overview tracker and AI Mode tracker take a country and language per query (we used Australia for this study) and return every cited URL; the citation tracker shows which domains AI engines cite for your prompts and your competitors' share. Checks run when you run them, and prompts you opt into the Action Plan citation tracker are re-checked weekly.
- BrightLocal. Strong for local businesses and agencies: it ran the largest local AI citation study we found, and its citation tools manage directory listings at scale.
- Whitespark. A long-standing local SEO specialist with an Australian citation source list and the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey.
- Manual checks. Free and fine for a handful of queries if you are physically in Australia, though slow and hard to record consistently.
How reliable is a small sample of AI Overview results?
Not very, on its own, and you should read our results with these limits in mind.
- Small n. 8 lookups, 7 queries, one run each. A site absent from our results may well be cited for other queries.
- AI answers change between runs. Across 991 repeated runs of 45 prompt-engine pairs tracked in AI Rank Lab (February to October 2026), two consecutive runs of the same prompt shared a median of just 41% of their cited domains (Jaccard 0.41). That data is mostly ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, but there is no reason to assume Google's AI answers are frozen.
- Country-level location. We searched from "Australia", not from a Sydney or Perth suburb. A real searcher's location changes which businesses appear, though the cited source types may be similar.
- Different surfaces for different queries. Local queries ran on AI Mode and product/money queries on AI Overviews (apart from the plumber query, which ran on both), so we cannot say how AI Overviews would have cited the accountant, electrician or dentist searches.
- Google only, desktop only. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot draw on different sources; BrightLocal found Yelp was ChatGPT's top local source, for example.
Google's own position is that there are no special requirements for AI features: a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, and AI Overviews and AI Mode may use "query fan-out" across subtopics to find supporting pages (Google Search Central). That is why the sites that rank and get trusted in classic search for your category, and your own Business Profile, are what you see cited.
If you want to run this check across your own category without copying URLs by hand, AI Rank Lab's AI Overview and AI Mode trackers record every cited source per query and location. Plans start at US$69 a month (priced in USD), and new accounts get 100 free credits to try a check. See the citation tracker.
Get a free AI ranking consultation
Want your brand to show up when ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity answer questions in your market? Tell us about your site and our team will send a personalized strategy.
