How Google Search works
Short answer
Google Search works in three stages: crawling, indexing and serving. Not every page makes it through each. Google does not guarantee any stage or accept payment to crawl or rank pages. AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on the same index.
The three stages
Section titled “The three stages”Each stage has its own failure modes and its own controls:
| Stage | Can fail because | Controlled by |
|---|---|---|
| Crawling | Not discovered, blocked, server errors | Links, sitemaps (XML sitemaps), robots.txt |
| Indexing | Low quality, duplicate, noindex | Content, Canonical URL signals, robots meta rules |
| Serving | Less relevant than other pages | Relevance and quality for the query |
What Google says it does not do
Section titled “What Google says it does not do”Where AI features fit
Section titled “Where AI features fit”So the same three stages are the precondition for appearing in AI Overviews or AI Mode. See Google AI Overviews.