Gemini SEO: how to get cited and recommended by Gemini

How Gemini grounds answers and shows sources

Gemini can answer from what its model learned in training, or ground the answer in fresh content. Google's crawler documentation describes grounding in Gemini Apps as content from the Google Search index supplied to the model at prompt time. In the Gemini API, the same idea is a tool: with Grounding with Google Search on, the model decides whether a search is needed, writes the queries, and returns an answer whose text spans map to source URLs and titles.

In the Gemini app, Google says responses may link to sources and related content. When a response has sources, a Sources button appears at the bottom or inline and opens a side panel. Not every response has them. If Gemini quotes a large amount of text from a web page, that page is linked in the sources list, and web images show their source link. Sources can also be a person's uploaded files or connected Workspace documents, so your page competes with more than the open web.

That gives you two routes into a Gemini answer:

1. Grounding. Your page must be in the Google Search index, and Google-Extended must not be disallowed, or Gemini Apps can't ground in it.
2. Training. What future Gemini models know about you comes partly from training, which Google-Extended also controls.

What to fix first, in order

1. Access. Run the live check above. Googlebot needs to crawl your pages, and Google-Extended should be allowed if you want Gemini to cite you. A blanket User-agent: * disallow catches both. The Google-Extended page explains the token.
2. Indexing. Grounding draws on the Google Search index, so a page that isn't indexed can't be a grounded source. Verify the site in Search Console and inspect the pages that matter.
3. Pages that answer buyer questions. Google publishes no Gemini-specific publisher guidance. What works is a page that states plainly what you sell, for whom, at what price and how it compares, because Gemini links pages it quotes.
4. Mentions on cited sites. Ask Gemini your buyers' questions and look at what it cites. If those reviews and guides don't mention you, that is the gap. The Pick Check lists them.

Google-Extended: the trade-off

Google-Extended is a robots.txt token with no user agent of its own; the fetching is done by Google's existing crawlers. Disallowing it opts your content out of Gemini training and out of grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI Grounding with Google Search, with no effect on Google Search inclusion or ranking. For a publisher whose value is the text, blocking it can make sense. For a business that wants Gemini to recommend it, blocking it removes the route Gemini uses to cite you. The Search Console generative AI setting is documented for AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover only, so Google-Extended is the documented Gemini control. For the Search side, see the AI Overviews and AI Mode guide.

Shopping in Gemini

Google says Gemini uses its Shopping Graph to help people find and compare products. Eligible listings show a Buy button with Google Pay checkout, from eligible merchants, with restrictions on some product types such as alcohol, tobacco and certain digital goods. It is available in the Gemini mobile app, on gemini.google.com and in Gemini in Chrome, in listed countries, for adults on personal accounts. On the merchant side, Merchant Center free listings may show on Gemini; the Free listings card under Marketing methods controls this and is on by default for new accounts. Complete, accurate product data is the lever you control. Shopify merchants can also read Google AI Mode for Shopify stores.

What not to do

• Don't block Google-Extended to fix a Search problem. It doesn't touch Search; it only takes you out of Gemini.
• Don't treat one Gemini chat as proof. Not every response shows sources, and Google warns Gemini can be inaccurate about the sources it cites.
• Don't assume the Search Console opt-out covers Gemini. Google doesn't document that it does.

Measuring progress

The Pick Check panel measures Gemini through the Gemini API with Grounding with Google Search. It asks your buyers' questions several times each, reports how often Gemini names or cites you with a likely range, and lists the sources it cited instead. It measures the API, not the consumer Gemini app, so treat it as a steady benchmark and watch the trend over repeated checks.