Answer in brief
Publish what a short summary cannot contain: first-hand data and worked examples, tools and templates that must be opened to be used, a named author with relevant experience, and depth such as full comparisons and edge cases. Put the direct answer at the top and give the page descriptive headings. Google says its AI features need no special markup or files, only the usual search fundamentals.
The summary takes the easy answer and leaves the rest
On many searches the results page answers before any site does: a generated summary sits above the links. Pew Research Center, which analysed the browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025, found that people who met such a summary clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits, against 15% for those who did not.
The same study measured the thing itself. The typical summary was 67 words long, the longest ran to 369, and 88% cited three or more sources. Sixty-seven words can hold a definition, a date or a rule of thumb. They cannot hold a price table, a method, a set of photographs or a tool.
That changes the editorial question. It is no longer only how to rank, but what on this page could not be compressed into a short paragraph and still be useful. The figures are Pew’s, from one country in one month, and should be read as a snapshot. The question they raise will outlast them, and a zero-click content strategy starts from it.
Which questions get summarised and which pages lose least
Summaries favour questions. In Pew’s data only 8% of one- or two-word searches produced a summary, against 53% of searches with ten words or more and 60% of queries that began with a question word such as who, what, when or why. The format most exposed is therefore the explanatory article that answers “what is” in its first paragraph, the staple of company blogs.
Sort your pages into two piles. In the first go pages whose whole value fits in a paragraph: a definition, an opening time, a simple rule. Keep them accurate and short; they will not carry your traffic. In the second go pages a reader must open to do something: compare options, calculate a cost, follow a procedure, check a claim or decide whom to trust.
Google’s own description of its features draws the same line. Its guidance for site owners says AI Overviews help people get to the gist of a complicated topic and provide a jumping-off point to explore links, while AI Mode suits queries that need further exploration, reasoning or complex comparisons. The gist belongs to the summary. The exploration is where a page still has work to do.
First-hand data and worked examples a summary can only point to
A summary is assembled from what is already published, so a page that restates other pages is competing with its own digest. Google’s self-assessment list for helpful content opens with the relevant questions: does the content provide original information, reporting, research or analysis, and if it draws on other sources, does it avoid simply copying or rewriting them?
A small business owns material nobody else can publish. It knows what its recent projects actually cost and how long they took, which questions customers ask before buying, and what happened when two approaches were tried side by side. It has photographs of real work, before and after. One worked example with genuine figures, anonymised if necessary, teaches more than a page of general advice.
Say how the material was gathered. Google’s guidance uses product reviews as its example: readers trust a piece more when they know how many products were tested, what the results were and how the tests were run, with evidence such as photographs. Then publish the headline figure and keep the breakdown beside it. A summary may quote the figure with your name; the reader who needs the table comes to you.
Tools and templates must be opened before they can be used
A summary can describe a calculator but cannot be one. Google’s page on helpful content counts interactive features, such as calculators and online tools, as part of a page’s main content alongside text and media. Among the qualities its raters are trained to assess is effort, and the page gives building a custom interactive map as an example of high effort.
Most businesses have candidates in a drawer: a price estimator that uses real rates, a checklist a customer can print before a first meeting, a spreadsheet for comparing suppliers, a sizing guide, or a short decision tree that ends in “this is the service you need”. Each answers a question of the doing kind, and each gives a reason to come back.
Hold tools to the standard of an article. State the assumptions and the date of the figures. Make it work on a phone. If the result is sent by email, say so before the visitor starts typing. And explain the logic in words on the same page: Google’s guidance on AI features asks that important content be available in textual form, which a bare widget is not.
A named author with experience is what a summary lacks
A generated summary has no author, and that matters most where a decision carries risk. Google’s guidance asks three questions. Is it self-evident to visitors who wrote the content? Do pages carry a byline where one would be expected? Does the byline lead to more information about the author and the areas they write about? The page adds that accurate authorship information is strongly encouraged.
Experience is the part worth showing. The same guidance asks whether content demonstrates first-hand expertise, for example the kind that comes from having actually used a product or service or visited a place. So write what was done, seen and measured, in the first person where it is true, and include the photograph that proves it. Say plainly what you did not test.
The reverse is spelt out too. Fabricated creator profiles, with AI-generated headshots, made-up names or false credentials, are described by Google as deception and as a signal of a low-quality page. Where automation produced a substantial part of the content, the guidance suggests making that evident to visitors. An author page with a real background and contact details takes little time to write.
Depth is whatever will not fit into sixty-seven words
Depth is not length. Google’s list of warning signs includes writing to a particular word count in the belief that the search engine prefers one, and answers in brackets: no, it does not. Depth is the material a reader needs after the gist: the exceptions, the comparison, the order of steps, the cost and the consequences of getting it wrong.
It has recognisable forms: a comparison table that says when each option wins, a procedure that names what can go wrong at each step, and the edge cases, such as the sole trader, the tenant or the order from abroad. Google notes that its AI features may issue several related searches across subtopics, a technique it calls query fan-out, so a page that covers the neighbouring questions may be found through more than one of them.
The finishing test comes from the same list. After reading, will someone feel they have learned enough to achieve their goal? Or will they need to search again for better information, which Google names as a sign that content was written for search engines first? A page worth the click is one that ends the search.
Answer in the first lines, then structure the page for the detail
Readers who arrive from a summary often want to verify or extend one point, so let them find it at once. The Nielsen Norman Group describes the inverted pyramid: begin with the most important information so that readers get the main point however little they read. Its advice is to frontload everything: a descriptive headline, an opening that states the conclusion, headings that say what follows.
Putting the answer first does not give the click away. It shows the reader that the page knows the answer, which is why they stay for the table underneath. The opposite habit, an answer buried under a long preamble, fails the reader and fails Google’s question of whether the main heading or title provides a descriptive, helpful summary of the content.
No separate structure is needed for machines. Google states that there are no additional requirements for appearing in AI Overviews or AI Mode: no new machine-readable files, no AI text files, no special schema.org markup. A page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet. The listed practices are familiar: allow crawling, link pages internally, keep important content as text, and make structured data match what is visible.
A publishing plan built on what cannot be compressed
Start with an inventory. Take the pages that matter most to the business and mark each one: replaceable by a paragraph, or worth opening. For every page of the first kind that brings customers, choose what to add from this guide: your own figures, a worked example, a tool, a named author or real depth. That is a zero-click content strategy in one sentence.
Then publish less and build more. Google’s warning signs include producing lots of content on many topics in the hope that some will perform, and mainly summarising what others have said. Update pages when the facts change, not to refresh the date; changing dates to make unchanged content look new is on the same list.
Google says that clicks arriving from results pages with AI Overviews are of higher quality, meaning those visitors are more likely to spend more time on the site. That is the company’s own account of its product, not independent research. The practical point holds either way: someone who clicks after reading a summary wants more than the summary, and the page has to contain it.
Practical checklist
- Sort your key pages into those a paragraph could replace and those a reader must open to use, compare or verify.
- Add one asset nobody else has to each important page: figures from your own work, a real case, a photograph or a tested procedure.
- Turn one frequent “how much” or “which one” question into a calculator, template or checklist that works on a phone.
- Give every article a real byline linked to an author page that states the relevant experience, and never invent a profile.
- Put the direct answer in the first lines, use descriptive headings and keep any structured data identical to the visible text.
Questions and answers
Is it still worth publishing articles when AI summaries answer first?
Yes, but not every kind. A page whose whole value is a definition or a single fact will often be replaced by the summary. Pages that hold your own data, worked examples, tools, named experience and full comparisons still have to be opened, and they are the kind of page a summary can cite as a source. The work shifts from producing many short answers to building fewer pages with something of their own.
Do I need special markup or files to appear in Google’s AI features?
According to Google’s documentation, no. Nothing extra is required for AI Overviews or AI Mode: you do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup, and no special schema.org structured data has to be added. The page has to be in the index and able to appear with a snippet, and inclusion is never guaranteed. The ordinary fundamentals of search remain the whole list.
Should I move the answer lower down the page so that people have to click?
No. Readers who cannot find the answer leave, and the habit conflicts with the advice of both sources used here: the Nielsen Norman Group recommends starting with the most important information, and Google asks whether a title or heading gives a helpful summary of the content. State the answer at the top and let the rest of the page provide what a short reply cannot: the evidence, the detail and the tool.
What kind of content can an AI summary not replace?
It cannot replace content that has to be used, checked or trusted. A calculator or template must be opened to work. A dataset with its method must be seen to be verified. An account of what a named person actually did carries an authority no anonymous paragraph has. And material that is simply too large, such as a full comparison, a procedure with its exceptions or a set of photographs, cannot be squeezed into a few sentences.
Can I stop Google showing my content in AI Overviews?
Google’s documentation points to the existing preview controls: nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex limit what is shown from a page in Search, AI features included, and robots.txt rules for Googlebot govern crawling. Because they act on Search as a whole, weigh what else you would lose before using them. Changes also take effect only after the page is recrawled, which Google says can take from several days to several months.