{"id":193644,"date":"2025-12-03T06:25:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T11:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/?p=193644"},"modified":"2025-12-03T06:25:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T11:25:44","slug":"short-vs-long-content-in-ai-overviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/short-vs-long-content-in-ai-overviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Short vs. Long Content in AI Overviews: The Data Says Both Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/p>

Lately, I\u2019ve seen some particularly bad advice floating around on how long content should be to show up in AI search. <\/div>\n

For instance, this study<\/a> of only 20 brands (narrow sample size) is proclaiming that content needs 10,000+ words to be cited by AI.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also seen others insist very short content (250\u2013500 words) is the future for visibility in AI, arguing that AI models have limited context windows and prefer concise answers (they don\u2019t<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In reality, it\u2019s a chicken-or-egg situation. If most of the internet starts publishing 10,000+ word guides, that\u2019s probably what will get cited. But they won\u2019t get cited because<\/em> they\u2019re 10,000+ words. They\u2019ll get cited because that\u2019s what\u2019s available (and what \u201cfresh\u201d content<\/a> starts to look like).<\/p>\n

But hey, don\u2019t take my word for it.<\/p>\n

In true Ahrefs fashion, we studied 174,000 pages cited in AI Overview responses to see what actually matters. Spoiler alert:<\/strong> there\u2019s almost no correlation between word length and being cited in AI Overviews.<\/p>\n

The best thing you can do is write as much as you need to convey your topic to your human audience concisely.<\/p>\n

Trim the fluff, get straight to the point, and stop chasing arbitrary word counts \u201cbecause it\u2019s good for SEO\u201d or \u201cbecause AI prefers it.\u201d<\/p>\n