Mirage Metrics research

Studies built on data Mirage Metrics collects itself: what was measured, how, over which dates, and what the data cannot say. Each study comes with its dataset to download.

Studies

  1. Which sources Google's AI Overviews cite for construction AI searches

    YouTube was cited in 132 of 133 overviews; 100 domains were cited at least once, 27 of them only once.

    Period
    October 21 to 29, 2026
    Published

  2. How much Google's AI Overview citations change from one day to the next

    Over 23 days, 4 domains were cited every day and 14 only once; the two US profiles cited the same domains on 20 of 22 days, the France profile on none.

    Period
    October 7 to 29, 2026
    Published

How these studies are made

  • Only data Mirage collected itself, with the tool, the dates and the profiles named on the page.
  • Every count is given with its denominator. Nothing is estimated or extrapolated beyond the data.
  • A third party appears only as what the data recorded about it, such as a domain cited a given number of times. No study ranks or judges a vendor.
  • Mirage's own results are reported with the rest and flagged as Mirage's, since Mirage has an interest in them.
  • The method and the limits are on the page, and a script computes every figure from the published dataset.

To report an error in a study, see the editorial policy.

Where the data comes from

Every day since October 7, 2026, Mirage records how Google's AI Overviews answer the searches its own construction pages are written for, on three search profiles. The first two studies come from those captures.