What Google AI Mode Links to in Arabic: 28 Prompts and a Country Effect Arab Sites Should Test

Google has been adding links to AI Mode and AI Overviews, and on 15 October 2026 it changed them again while still not reporting clicks. We wanted to see something simpler: when someone asks AI Mode a question in Arabic, which sites does it link to, and does the answer change with the country? We ran 28 Arabic prompts on 21 October 2026 and re-ran four of them with different country settings.

What changed in AI Mode links on 15 October 2026?

Search Engine Roundtable reported that Google added more inline links, moved some links higher, expanded news carousels with Preferred Sources to more regions and languages, redesigned its “Dive Deeper” section, and began testing clickable creator names on videos. Google also said Preferred Sources use has grown 7x this year. Search Console’s AI reports still show no click data, and Google told the site it will “introduce additional metrics over time”. Source: Search Engine Roundtable, 15 October 2026. The report does not say whether the expanded news carousels cover Arabic, and we did not confirm that visually either.

How did we test it?

We opened Google AI Mode in Arabic (udm=50&hl=ar) in a browser located in Cairo, entered 28 prompts across health, news, shopping, finance, government services, jobs, education and travel, waited about eight seconds for the answer, and counted the external links in it and the sites they point to. We counted only link anchors: hotel, flight, map and listing modules may hold sources that are not anchors, so “no links” means no external anchors found. It was one browser, one day, signed-out status not checked, and 28 prompts is a small sample.

How many answers had links, and to whom?

Twenty-four of the 28 answers had external links, with a median of 9 per answer (range 1 to 19). The four with none were apartments in Jeddah, restaurants in Dubai, hotels near the Haram in Makkah, and flights from Riyadh to Cairo, all areas where Google shows its own listing, hotel or flight modules.

Most linked sites were Arab-owned sites, government portals, banks or the brand’s own site. A question on opening a company in the UAE linked to two government portals and six consultancies and free zones. A question on opening an account in Kuwait linked to six Kuwaiti banks’ own sites and no comparison sites. Health answers mixed clinics, Arabic health portals and, in two cases, Mayo Clinic. Foreign sites were few: Mayo Clinic, Apple, EF, AccuWeather and Netflix’s help centre. Facebook appeared in four answers, Instagram in two and YouTube in two.

Does the country change which sites AI Mode cites?

Yes, in our four-prompt check. With no country in the prompt and our browser in Cairo, AI Mode answered as if the user were in Egypt. “Best laptop for study” returned six Egyptian retailers. “Gold price today” returned a gram price in Egyptian pounds from Egyptian sites. Adding gl=sa to the same search changed the gold answer to Saudi sites and the global ounce price, and gl=ae changed it to UAE sources. The laptop answer moved to Saudi retailers under gl=sa and to UAE retailers under gl=ae, with international review sites such as PCMag and Reddit in both.

The gl parameter is a country signal in the web address, not a phone in Riyadh or Dubai, so this shows how AI Mode reacts to the signal, not exactly what each user sees.

What should an Arab site do with this?

Do not test your AI Mode visibility from one location. A brand that is cited for a Saudi user may not be cited for a user in Egypt on the same question, so run your prompt list with country settings for each market you sell in and record the date. Make the country and city explicit on the page itself, because the same question without a country was answered from the location signal rather than from the text. Government-service and price questions are cited from official or local sources, so a commercial site gains more from a clear, dated price or fee table than from a general article. For hotels, flights, restaurants and apartments, expect Google’s own modules to take the place of outside links, and invest in the Google Business Profile and listing feeds instead. Keep tracking clicks in GA4 yourself, since Search Console’s AI report still gives none: see our Search Console AI report guide and how ChatGPT visits appear in GA4.

What does this test not show?

It does not show how often a given site is cited, because we did not repeat each prompt, and AI answers vary between runs. It does not cover mobile, a signed-in AI Pro account, Gemini 4 Argon, or AI Overviews on classic results. We did not check whether the new top-links block, the Arabic news carousel or Preferred Sources appeared in these answers. The country check covers four prompts.

FAQ

Does Google AI Mode link to Arabic websites?

In 24 of our 28 Arabic prompts it did, with a median of nine external links, mostly to Arab-owned, government or brand sites.

Why does AI Mode answer from Egypt when I do not name a country?

In our test the answer followed the location signal of the browser, which was in Cairo. When we set a Saudi or UAE country parameter the answer, sources and prices changed.

Can I see AI Mode clicks in Search Console?

Not yet. Google said on 15 October that it will add more metrics over time.