How Feature Upvote fixed Google's wrong AI Overview answer
Feature Upvote founder Steve McLeod searched for his own platform's API documentation in July 2026 and found a Google AI Overview stating the company had no REST API, a week after he had launched one. The false answer traced back to old blog posts containing throwaway remarks that no API existed, which Google cited ahead of newer help documentation headed "Public REST API".
McLeod published a blog post, an X post and a newsletter announcing the API on 24 July, partly to give Google fresh material, and called out the error directly. After a reader suggested manually submitting pages for indexing, he found Google had not indexed his announcement post at all. Within an hour of submitting his pages on 28 July, the AI Overview answered "Yes" to whether Feature Upvote has an API.
The correction was not uniform at first. McLeod found the answer flipped depending on phrasing, with some question variants still returning the old denial for several days before settling. The episode points to a repeatable fix for brands: publish a dedicated page stating the fact plainly, correct outdated pages that AI systems cite, and make sure Google has actually indexed them.
For marketers, the case shows that AI answers about a brand can be corrected in hours rather than months, and that indexing status is often the hidden blocker. It also shows the answer can vary by query wording, so checking a single prompt is not enough to confirm a fix has held.
Reported by Semrush Blog ↗
Topics: AI Overviews, Google Search, Citations