Achieving a first-page ranking on Google for Australian searches relies heavily on demonstrating relevance and authority to Google’s search algorithms, and currently, Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) – now including AI Overviews – significantly impacts how results are displayed.
Google’s ranking systems, as of December 2025, utilise a complex network of factors, but a core component is understanding a website’s content through its indexing process. Googlebot crawls websites, analysing text, images, and code. This data is then used to understand the topic and context of each page. In 2026, Google is expanding its use of multimodal understanding, meaning it’s increasingly analysing images and videos *within* content to determine relevance. For .com.au domains, Google prioritises signals indicating Australian relevance, including local citations, geo-targeted keywords, and a strong presence in Google Business Profile (GBP). GBP listings, currently free for Australian businesses, directly feed into local search results and AI Overviews. Google’s Helpful Content system, updated in late 2025, further prioritises content created for users, not solely for search engine ranking, and penalises content deemed unoriginal or automatically generated. The system also considers Core Web Vitals – metrics measuring page experience like loading speed and interactivity – as ranking factors.
Ultimately, Google’s search process functions by matching user queries to the most relevant and authoritative content it has indexed, with AI Overviews synthesising information from multiple sources to provide direct answers.
