Google AI Overviews pull our insurance guidance content but link to competitors' comparison pages instead. We've already checked our canonical tags. What else drives citation attribution?

Citation attribution in AI Overviews is partly driven by domain authority and topical clustering, but more immediately by the semantic clarity of your content relative to what the model sees elsewhere. When a competitor's page ranks higher for the same query or is structured as an obvious hub or comparison resource, Google's systems may treat it as the authoritative source even if your content is cited in the generated text.

Start this week by auditing five to ten queries where you see this happen. For each one, note the competitor's URL, their page structure (is it a hub, comparison table, resource list?), and their Domain Rating compared to yours. Then check whether your own content explicitly answers the query intent or if it's embedded in a longer article. Competitors often win citations when they dedicate a single page to answering the specific question, while your answer lives in a 3000-word guide.

Next, add schema.org/Article markup with headline, datePublished, and author to your high-value pages, and ensure your title tag and H1 directly match the query intent you're targeting. If a competitor is winning the citation for a comparison or guide, consider creating a dedicated resource page—not a blog post—that mirrors their structure but reflects your brand's unique position.

Within two weeks, re-run the same queries in Google AI Overviews. You should see either citations moving to your domain or your content appearing higher in the snippet itself. If citations still point elsewhere, the issue is likely topical authority; you may need to build more interconnected content around that topic cluster to shift how the model weights your brand.