Free AI Overview Location Check: Test by City, Country and Language

A location check answers three questions for one query in one market:

• Does an AI Overview appear at all? Google's AI features documentation is clear that AI Overviews often do not trigger. Whether one shows up also varies by location and language.
• Which pages does it cite? The supporting links show which sources Google drew on for that market.
• What does it say about you? A Spanish answer can describe your prices or locations differently from the English one.

It does not tell you why Google chose those sources, and it does not give you a position. Google's generative AI report in Search Console exposes impressions only, with no position data. For the wider picture, see whether AI Overviews differ by location and language.

You need a browser, a spreadsheet and, for city-level checks, a VPN or a colleague on the ground.

1. Open a private window and stay signed out. This removes most account history from the result.
2. Build the search URL with country and language set. Add gl (country code) and hl (interface language) to the query. For example, a Spanish-language search from Mexico:

https://www.google.com/search?q=clinica+dental+monterrey&hl=es&gl=mx

3. Match your IP to the market when the city matters. The gl parameter sets the country, not the city. Google also uses signals such as your IP address, so connect through a VPN exit in that city, or ask someone there to run the same URL.
4. Write the query the way locals search. Translate intent, not words. A literal translation of your English keyword may not be what buyers type. The multi-country prompt sets playbook covers how to build these lists.
5. Capture the result. Take a full-page screenshot. Expand the AI Overview and copy every cited URL.
6. Repeat on mobile. Use your browser's device emulation or a phone, since layouts and results can differ by device.
7. Run each query twice on different days. One result is a sample, not a pattern.

If you first need to find which queries show an AI Overview at all, start with the keyword trigger check.

Several things change between markets, and you control only some of them.

• Whether the feature triggers. Google decides per query. The same query can show an AI Overview in one country and plain results in another.
• Which pages exist in that language. Google can only cite pages it has indexed. If your Portuguese pages don't exist or aren't indexed, Google can't cite them for Portuguese searches.
• Local competitors and sources. A query about dentists in Austin draws on different sites than the same query in Monterrey.
• The searches behind the answer. Google says it may use a query fan-out technique, issuing multiple related searches across subtopics. Those searches run against the market's own results.

The part in your control is eligibility. Google states that a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet, and that there are no additional technical requirements. Check each localized page for noindex, nosnippet or max-snippet:0 set by mistake, using Google's robots meta tag specifications.

Sort each market into one of four outcomes:

• No AI Overview. Nothing to fix for this query here. Recheck later.
• AI Overview, you're cited. Confirm the facts it states are correct for that market.
• AI Overview, others cited. Look at who is cited. Being named on those sites is associated with appearing in the answer, though no effect is promised.
• AI Overview, wrong facts about you. This is the urgent case. Follow the steps for checking AI Overview accuracy.

When your page is missing, check eligibility before you rewrite anything. Google's optimization guide says you don't need to write in a specific way for generative AI search. A clear page that states the specific fact (price, opening hours, service area) in plain HTML gives the engine a sentence it can quote.

Treat every market as its own record. Say you run a dental group with clinics in Austin and Monterrey. An Austin citation tells you nothing about Monterrey, and an English result tells you nothing about the Spanish one.

Use one row per query, per market, per date, with these columns:

Never blend markets into one number. A single average hides the market where you're absent or described wrongly. Once you have a baseline, compare it with AI Mode answers for the same queries, since Google says the two may use different models and techniques.

• It's a snapshot. You see one result at one moment. Results change between runs.
• Location is approximate. A VPN exit or gl value is not the same as a resident searching on their own phone.
• There's no rank. Google exposes no position data for AI Overviews, so any "AI rank" you write down has nothing to check it against.
• A citation is not proof of use. A linked page may have shaped the answer more or less than its placement suggests.
• It doesn't scale. Ten queries across five markets and two devices is already 100 checks.

For first-party data, Search Console's generative AI report shows impressions broken down by country, as of October 2026. It has no clicks or position data.

If you need more than a handful of markets, the AI Overview Checker from 99Visibility shows whether an AI Overview appears for a query and what it cites, without building URLs by hand. Log its output in the same per-market sheet. For a full manual baseline across engines, use the free AI visibility audit method.