You can rank #1 and still be invisible to AI search.
That’s the uncomfortable truth of the AI Mode era. Google’s AI doesn’t just look at your page, it extracts specific sentences, evaluates them against the query, and decides whether your content deserves to ground its answer. The rest of your carefully crafted copy?
Find out!
The Gemini Grounding Tool reveals:
- Which URLs Gemini pulls into its answers
- The exact sentences it extracts from each page (grounding chunks)
Enter a query. Optionally add a location. See what the AI actually reads.
That’s it. Now you know which content is working in AI search—and which isn’t.
Why This Matters for AI SEO
When Gemini answers a query, it doesn’t hallucinate from training data alone. It performs live Google searches, retrieves pages, and extracts specific text segments to “ground” its response in real sources. These grounding chunks are the atomic unit of AI search visibility.
Think of it like this:
Traditional Search:
Query → Ranked URLs → User clicks → User reads page
AI Search:
Query → Ranked URLs → AI extracts sentences → AI synthesizes answer
The critical difference: the AI is now the reader. And it’s a very selective reader.
The Visibility Gap
You might rank position 1 for a query and still have zero presence in the AI answer. Why?
- Wrong content extracted — The AI pulled sentences that don’t represent your core value
- Competitor sentences preferred — Another page had more grounding-friendly text
- Thin grounding — Your page was used but barely—one weak sentence vs. competitor’s eight strong ones
The tool exposes this gap.
Content Optimisation Implications
Once you see what gets grounded, you can:
- Front-load key information — Sentences that appear early and standalone tend to get extracted
- Write grounding-friendly copy — Clear, factual, self-contained statements
- Cover fanout angles — Address the sub-queries the AI is actually running
- Identify grounding failures — Pages that rank but don’t get grounded need restructuring
Competitive Intelligence
Run your competitors’ branded queries. See what sentences Gemini extracts from their pages. Understand what content structure is winning in your vertical.
Technical Notes
The tool uses Gemini’s google_search grounding tool to perform live searches, the same infrastructure that powers AI Mode. Results reflect real-time grounding behaviour, not cached or estimated data.
Location parameter affects localisation. A query from “Sydney, Australia” will return different sources than the same query from “New York, USA.”
How to Use It
- Go to snippets.dejan.ai
- Enter your query (what would a user search?)
- Optionally add location for localised results
- Click “Start Analysis”
- Review which URLs and sentences appear
The Bottom Line
AI search is rewriting the rules of visibility. Ranking is necessary but no longer sufficient. Your content needs to be grounding-friendly, structured so the AI extracts the right sentences and presents them prominently. This tool shows you what’s actually happening.
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