Is Sited Better Than Profound? Google's Thinner AI Overview Citations Explained
Google is testing a thinner AI Overview citations panel that could cut clicks even for cited brands. Here's what changed and how to respond.
Sited is the better choice for founders and small marketing teams who want a fast, affordable read on their AI visibility, while Profound suits larger teams that need daily, always-on monitoring across nine AI engines. The distinction matters more than ever now that Google is testing a thinner citations panel in AI Overviews, a change that could shrink your clicks even when your brand is the cited source. Below, we explain what changed and how each tool helps you respond.
What changed with Google's AI Overviews citations panel?
Google has begun testing a slimmer version of the citations panel that sits to the right of an AI Overview answer. According to Search Engine Roundtable, Google is testing a thinner design for the citations and link panel on the right side of the AI Overview, and it may be less noticeable to searchers, potentially leading to fewer clicks.
This is not a hypothetical concern. Industry commentary picked up on the same shift this month, framing it as a design change with real commercial consequences. As Excite CS puts it, Google is testing a thinner citations panel inside its AI Overviews, the little box of source links that sits to the side of the AI answer, and thinner means less noticeable, which means fewer people click through to the source, even when that source is you.
For anyone tracking AI visibility, this is the uncomfortable part of the story. You can do everything right, earn the citation, get named as the answer, and still watch your click-through quietly shrink because the link got harder to see.
Why does this matter for your business?
The scale of AI Overviews makes this design decision significant. Google says they reach over 2 billion monthly users across more than 200 countries, roughly a quarter of everyone on Earth, according to figures compiled by Instant Press. A shrinking citations panel affects that entire audience, not a niche slice of search traffic.
It also lands on top of an already difficult click-through picture. When an AI Overview appears, the number one organic result loses about 58% of its clicks, and the zero-click rate jumps to roughly 83%, per the same Instant Press data. If the citation panel itself becomes harder to see, that gap has room to widen further.
There is a silver lining buried in the data, though. Brands cited within AI Overviews earn 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks compared with brands that are not cited at all, Instant Press notes. Being cited still matters, it just matters less per citation than it used to, which raises the bar for how many citations a brand needs to maintain the same volume of visits.
The practical takeaway is that citation share is becoming a leading indicator you need to track continuously, not something you check once and forget. Google's own citation behaviour keeps shifting: Nieman Journalism Lab reports that when a Google search user encounters an AI Overview or an AI Mode response, the response now highlights whether it includes information from a publication the user subscribes to, and Google claims people were
