Google is testing an update to the citations, anchor links, and favicons within the AI Mode results. This new experience seems to make the citations more clickable because the embedded links have larger favicons and seem to appear more often, near the text it is referencing.
This test was spotted by Sachin Patel who posted some screenshots on X - he wrote, "Is this new logo appearing after the website anchor text? When I hover over it, it appears differently. Previously, it was just clickable and redirected to the website, but now it behaves differently."
Here are some of the variations of this design he spotted:
Brodie Clark later was able to replicate and post his example on X and SERP Alerts - he wrote, "With this new test, the embedded links now also show with a larger favicon. This was first discovered by @SachuPatel53124, who also spotted a variation that features the embedded links with a black underline with a black link icon beside it."
Here is his screenshot:
Forum discussion at X.
