Gemini SEO: how to show up in Google's Gemini answers
GeminiGemini SEO is getting your brand named when people ask Google's Gemini assistant what to buy. Gemini answers from its training and grounds answers in Google Search's index, so it starts with ordinary Google SEO, plus one setting, Google-Extended, that decides whether Gemini may use your pages at all.
Picked is an AI visibility tool for SEO and marketing agencies, and B2B SaaS teams. Every day it asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI answers the prompts your buyers ask, records which brands and pages they name, and writes the article built to become the source they quote.
10
brands named per Gemini answer, more than any other model we read
2.4
links per answer, the fewest of any model we read
14 of 24
links went to list-style pages
10 Gemini answers for 
LaunchOnIt, read from the Gemini interface, US, September 27 and 28, 2026.
How it picks
How does Gemini decide which brands to name?
Gemini is Google's assistant, the app at gemini.google.com and on Android phones. It isn't the same thing as the AI Overviews or AI Mode in Google Search, though all three come from Google.
For a buying question Gemini has two sources:
Training
What the Gemini models learned from the web before their cutoff.
Grounding in Google Search
Google describes grounding as giving the model content from the Google Search index at the moment of the question, to make the answer more accurate and current. There's no Gemini crawler for this: Google says
Google-Extendedhas no user agent of its own, and the crawling is done by Google's usual bots.
So the first rule of Gemini SEO is the first rule of Google SEO. A page Google hasn't indexed can't be used to ground a Gemini answer.
Google-Extended
What does Google-Extended change?
Google-Extended is a setting in robots.txt, not a separate crawler. According to Google's crawler docs, read September 29, 2026, it controls whether content Google crawls from your site may be used to train future Gemini models and for grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI. Google also says it "does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal".
Nothing
- Google Search
- Yes
- AI Overviews and AI Mode
- Yes
- Gemini app answers
- Your pages can train Gemini and ground its answers
Google-Extended- Google Search
- Unchanged
- AI Overviews and AI Mode
- Unchanged
- Gemini app answers
- Your pages aren't used to train Gemini or ground its answers
Googlebot
- Google Search
- You leave Search
- AI Overviews and AI Mode
- You leave them too
- Gemini app answers
- Nothing left to ground on
| You block | Google Search | AI Overviews and AI Mode | Gemini app answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nothing | Yes | Yes | Your pages can train Gemini and ground its answers |
Google-Extended | Unchanged | Unchanged | Your pages aren't used to train Gemini or ground its answers |
| Googlebot | You leave Search | You leave them too | Nothing left to ground on |
Blocking Google-Extended is a Gemini-only decision: your Google rankings and AI Overviews stay as they were, and Gemini stops using your pages. If being recommended by Gemini matters to you, leave it allowed, and check that no "block AI" setting in your CDN or CMS added it to robots.txt for you.
Gemini SEO is mostly SEO, with a different scoreboard.
Our data
What does Gemini cite?
We asked Gemini 5 buyer questions for LaunchOnIt, a launch platform we run, on September 27 and 28, 2026, US, read from the Gemini interface: 10 answers.
2.4
Links per answer (ChatGPT, same questions: 8.0)
14
Different sites linked
10.0
Brands named per answer
10 of 24
Links to the site of a brand the answer named
14 of 24
Links to pages titled like a list ("best", "top", "vs")
Gemini named more brands than any other model we read, about ten an answer, and linked fewer pages than any of them. Most of what it knew, it didn't link. More than half the links it did give went to list-style pages, the "best X" roundups that decide who the options are.
For Gemini that means the brand has to be known before the question is asked: on the lists, directories and reviews that Google indexes and Gemini learned from. A single good page on your own site is less likely to be the link Gemini shows. Ten answers from one product is a small sample; read it as a pattern to check against your own answers, not a rule.
Real answers, not a mock-up
Sources
- 1
16 Best Product Hunt Alternatives in 2026 (Free + Paid)smollaunch.com6 - 2
What are the best sites that collate all the new ai tools being released?reddit.com4 - 3100 Free Platforms to Launch Your SaaS Product in 2026guillaumeduhan.medium.com2
- 416 Best Startup Directories & Launch Platforms (2026)startupa.ge2
- 5Startup Directory List (2026)alldirectories.org1
- –
launchon.it (You)Not cited
What to change
How do I get my brand to show up in Gemini?
No one can make Gemini name you. These steps give it reasons to.
- 1
Get indexed by Google
Check Search Console for your key pages. Gemini grounds on Google's index.
- 2
Leave
Google-Extendedallowed, unless you've decided Gemini shouldn't use your pages. Look for it in
robots.txtand in your CDN's AI bot settings. - 3
Get onto the lists
Find the "best X for Y" pages and review sites that rank for your buyers' questions, and get listed or reviewed. In our answers, lists got more of Gemini's links than any other kind of page.
- 4
Describe yourself the same way everywhere
Your category, who you're for and what you cost, worded consistently on your site, your Google Business Profile if you have one, directories and reviews.
- 5
Answer each buying question on its own page
, with the answer in the first sentence and facts a model can repeat.
Measure it
How do I check Gemini?
Ask Gemini your buyers' questions on several days, and note who's named and what's linked. Answers change day to day, so one check tells you little.
To track it, an AI visibility tool asks the same prompts on a schedule. Picked reads Gemini's answers from its own interface, not the API, and records who's named and which pages are linked, next to the same prompts on ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. Gemini can be one of your AI models on every plan. For a first look, the free AI visibility checker asks ChatGPT and AI Overviews.
When not to bother
When Gemini SEO won't help
Honest answer: sometimes this isn't worth your time.
Google can't index you
Fix that first; nothing on this page works without it.
Your buyers don't use Gemini
They may meet Google's AI in AI Overviews instead, which is a different product with its own tracker page.
The other AI models
Each one reads the web its own way
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Short answers, each one checked against the vendor's own docs or our own answers.
No. Gemini is Google's assistant app. AI Overviews are the AI summaries at the top of some Google Search results, and AI Mode is Search's chat tab. All three use Google's models and index, but they answer differently and link different pages, so track them separately.
No. Google says Google-Extended doesn't affect inclusion in Google Search and isn't a ranking signal. It controls whether your pages can train Gemini models and ground answers in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI. Blocking it keeps you in Search and out of Gemini's grounding.
No separate one for answers. Gemini grounds answers in Google Search's index, which Googlebot builds. The Google-Extended token in robots.txt is how you say whether Gemini may use what Googlebot crawled; it isn't a bot that visits your site.
Get your pages indexed by Google, leave Google-Extended allowed, and give each buying question a page that answers it in the first sentence. In our answers Gemini linked few pages and favoured list-style roundups, so being listed on those pages matters as much as your own.
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