SEOSEO · Google Search Console
Google AI Search Settings in 2026: How to Check Your Website's Visibility
Google now gives website owners a switch for AI Overviews and AI Mode, and a report that shows how often their pages appear there. Here's where to find both, what they actually control, and what they can't promise.
- Written by
- The Social Stellor Studio · Creative Team
- Published
- Reading time
- 15 min
Last verified November 3, 2026 against Search Console Help, Google Search Central and a live Search Console interface. Sources are listed at the end.
A customer mentions that they asked Google a question and got a long AI answer at the top of the page, with a few websites linked beside it. Yours wasn't one of them. A competitor's was.
So you start wondering. Is your website allowed to appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode? Is there a setting you've never touched? And is there any way to know whether your pages already show up there, or is it all guesswork?
Since August 31, 2026, there are real answers to those questions. Google Search Console now has a setting for generative AI features in Search and a report that counts how often your pages appear in them. This guide shows where both live, what they control, what the numbers mean, and the part no setting can give you: a guaranteed place in the answer.
- Search Console has a "Search generative AI" control under Settings, in a section called AI controls. It covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover.
- Every site is included by default. The control can only keep your content out; it can't put it in.
- The Generative AI performance report (Performance → Generative AI) counts impressions by page, country, device and date. It doesn't show clicks or queries.
- Google says a page needs to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet to appear as a supporting link. There's no special schema, AI file or llms.txt requirement.
- Google's control only affects Google. ChatGPT, Copilot and other assistants have their own systems, and Bing reports AI citations separately.
What Changed in Google AI Search in 2026?
On June 3, 2026, Google announced two things for website owners. The first was a control in Search Console (opens in new tab) that decides whether a site's links and content can appear in its generative AI Search features. The second was a set of Generative AI performance reports (opens in new tab) showing how pages appear in those features. Both started as tests with a limited group of sites; Google's announcement described the control being tested with "a subset of website owners in the UK".
Both announcements now carry an update dated August 31, 2026, saying the features had rolled out "to all websites worldwide." If you verified your site in Search Console, you should have both today.
| Date | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| June 3, 2026 | Google begins testing the Search generative AI control and starts rolling out Generative AI performance reports to a subset of sites | The Keyword; Search Central blog |
| August 31, 2026 | Both rolled out to all websites worldwide | Update notes on both announcements |
| November 3, 2026 | The report still carries a "Beta" label in the Search Console interface | Our read-only check of a live property |
- What happened
- Google begins testing the Search generative AI control and starts rolling out Generative AI performance reports to a subset of sites
- Source
- The Keyword; Search Central blog
- What happened
- Both rolled out to all websites worldwide
- Source
- Update notes on both announcements
- What happened
- The report still carries a "Beta" label in the Search Console interface
- Source
- Our read-only check of a live property
It helps to be precise about scope. These settings and reports cover Google's own AI features: AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search, and generative AI features in Discover. They have no effect on ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity or any other assistant. Each of those decides what to cite in its own way, which our guide on why a business may not show up in AI search covers in more depth.
Both paths share the same foundation. Google's optimization guide (opens in new tab) says these features are built on its core Search ranking and quality systems, and its AI features documentation (opens in new tab) says their traffic is included in the normal Performance report under the "Web" search type. What changes is the last step: instead of a list of links, people see a written answer with a smaller number of sources beside or inside it.
What Is Google's Search Generative AI Control?
The Search generative AI control (opens in new tab) decides whether your site's links and content can appear in Google's generative AI Search features. In the interface, Google describes it as a way to "control your site's visibility in generative AI features on Google Search, such as AI overviews and AI mode."
It has two choices, plus a third for properties that sit under another one:
| Option (Google's wording) | What it means | Default? |
|---|---|---|
| Include my site's links and content in Search generative AI features | Your pages can be shown as links and can help ground AI responses. You can receive impressions and traffic from these features. | Yes, for any property without a parent |
| Exclude my site's links and content from Search generative AI features | Your links and content are kept out of these features. You receive no traffic or impressions from them. | No |
| Inherit control from parent | The property follows the setting of its closest parent property that has one. | Yes, for properties that have a parent |
- What it means
- Your pages can be shown as links and can help ground AI responses. You can receive impressions and traffic from these features.
- Default?
- Yes, for any property without a parent
- What it means
- Your links and content are kept out of these features. You receive no traffic or impressions from them.
- Default?
- No
- What it means
- The property follows the setting of its closest parent property that has one.
- Default?
- Yes, for properties that have a parent
Notice what "Include" really is: permission. It makes your content eligible to be considered. It doesn't ask Google to show you, and it doesn't move you up a queue. Every site starts on Include, so for most businesses, changing nothing is already the "opt in" position.
What the control doesn't do
Google's help page is careful about the limits, and they matter if you're thinking of switching to Exclude:
- It isn't used as a ranking signal anywhere else in Search. Excluding your site from AI features shouldn't change your ordinary blue-link rankings.
- It doesn't control AI training. For that, Google points to Google-Extended, a separate robots.txt product token.
- It doesn't override your choices for Merchant Center or Google Ads.
- If you exclude your site, content from other sites can still appear, and Google notes it "may look similar" to yours.
- Google says your content may still be used to help Search understand queries and web pages in general.
- If you want a page out of Google Search entirely, the tool is noindex, not this control.
How to Find Your AI Search Settings in Search Console
Before you start, two prerequisites. First, your website needs to be verified as a property in Search Console. Second, you need the right access. Google's permissions page (opens in new tab) says owners can "configure settings", and its help for this control describes owners making the change. If someone else set up Search Console for you, such as a developer or a previous agency, ask them to add you as an owner, or ask them to check the setting with you.
- Sign in to Google Search Console with the Google account that has access to your website.
- Choose your website from the property selector at the top left.
- Click Settings near the bottom of the left-hand menu.
- Find the section headed AI controls and click the row called Search generative AI.
- Read the line that says "Current control". It shows whether the property is set to Include or Exclude.
- If the page says "Inherit control from" followed by another property, your setting is coming from that parent property. Note which one it is.
- Leave it as it is, or choose a different option and click Save. Google says changes generally take a few days, and that exclusion typically applies one to two days after a change goes live, with some content taking longer because of caching.
These steps match the Search Console interface as we checked it on November 3, 2026. Google moves menus from time to time. If you can't see Settings → AI controls, check the property type and your access level, and use the direct link in Google's help page for the control.
Check where your setting is inherited from
This is the step most people skip, and it can matter. A website can sit inside more than one Search Console property. A Domain property such as example.com is the parent of a URL-prefix property such as https://example.com/, which in turn is the parent of https://example.com/blog/. A child property follows its closest parent that has a setting, unless its own owner overrides it.
When we checked our own URL-prefix property, it showed "Inherit control from: socialstellor.com", the top-level domain above it. That on its own isn't a warning sign: Google says that when no parent has set the control, a property inherits from the top-level domain property. But it does mean that whoever owns a verified Domain property for your site can change the setting your pages inherit, and that might not be you. If your page shows something similar, find out whether anyone has verified the Domain property, and who. Google says the owner of a top-level Domain property sees a notification when a child property overrides its setting.
Should You Allow Your Website in AI Overviews and AI Mode?
For most small businesses, the honest answer is yes, leave it on Include. But it's a business decision, not a technical one, and a few kinds of site have real reasons to think harder.
| Consideration | Staying included | Excluding |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Your pages can be cited for questions people now ask in AI Overviews and AI Mode | You get no impressions or traffic from these features at all |
| Brand visibility | Your name and link can sit next to an answer, even when people don't click | Competitors' content can still answer the question, and may look similar to yours |
| Content control | Your content can help ground AI responses that summarize it | Your crawled content isn't used as input for those responses |
| Measurement | The Generative AI report shows how often your pages appear | The report will usually show nothing, so you lose that view |
| Ordinary rankings | No effect | No effect, according to Google |
- Staying included
- Your pages can be cited for questions people now ask in AI Overviews and AI Mode
- Excluding
- You get no impressions or traffic from these features at all
- Staying included
- Your name and link can sit next to an answer, even when people don't click
- Excluding
- Competitors' content can still answer the question, and may look similar to yours
- Staying included
- Your content can help ground AI responses that summarize it
- Excluding
- Your crawled content isn't used as input for those responses
- Staying included
- The Generative AI report shows how often your pages appear
- Excluding
- The report will usually show nothing, so you lose that view
- Staying included
- No effect
- Excluding
- No effect, according to Google
Who might reasonably consider excluding? A publisher whose business is selling detailed content may decide that being summarized costs more in subscriptions than it brings in visits. A site with sensitive or regulated information may want tighter control over how it's paraphrased. For a plumber, an accountant or a local clinic, the trade usually runs the other way: an AI answer that cites you is one more place a nearby customer can find you.
If you only want to keep certain parts of a page out of AI answers, you don't need to exclude the whole site. Google's AI features documentation points to page-level tools such as nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet. Remember that they limit snippets in ordinary Search too.
How to Measure AI Search Visibility
Google's Generative AI performance report (opens in new tab) is the first official view of how your pages appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode. To find it, open Performance in the left-hand menu and click Generative AI. The report page is titled "Generative AI features".
Here's what it gives you, according to Google's help page and what we saw in the interface:
- One metric: impressions. Google defines them as how many times links to your site were shown to a user in a generative AI feature on Google Search.
- Four views: Pages, Countries, Devices and Days (dates can be grouped by day, week or month).
- A search type filter, so you can separate Web results by type.
- Date ranges such as the last 7 days, 28 days or 3 months.
And here's what it doesn't give you. There are no clicks, no click-through rate, no position and no queries in this report. If the report says, for example, that a page was shown in AI answers 40 times last month, you won't see which questions triggered it or whether anyone visited. Google's launch post says more metrics will come "over time", without dates.
A few other details are worth knowing. The newest data is preliminary and can change within hours. The report excludes Search Labs experiments. Discover has its own Generative AI report (opens in new tab). And if the report is missing, Google says that "usually" means your site hasn't had enough AI impressions yet, or that it's set to Exclude.
| Where to look | What it counts | What it can't tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Search Console: Generative AI report | Impressions of your links in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device and date | Clicks, queries, position, or how you were described |
| Search Console: Performance report (Web) | Clicks, impressions, CTR and position for all Web results, with AI feature traffic included | Which of those clicks came from an AI feature |
| Bing Webmaster Tools: AI Performance (preview) | Citations of your pages in Copilot, Bing AI summaries and some partner experiences, plus sampled grounding queries | Visits, or anything about Google |
| Your analytics | Visits and enquiries from referring sites, including some AI assistants | Impressions, or AI answers that sent no visit |
- What it counts
- Impressions of your links in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device and date
- What it can't tell you
- Clicks, queries, position, or how you were described
- What it counts
- Clicks, impressions, CTR and position for all Web results, with AI feature traffic included
- What it can't tell you
- Which of those clicks came from an AI feature
- What it counts
- Citations of your pages in Copilot, Bing AI summaries and some partner experiences, plus sampled grounding queries
- What it can't tell you
- Visits, or anything about Google
- What it counts
- Visits and enquiries from referring sites, including some AI assistants
- What it can't tell you
- Impressions, or AI answers that sent no visit
Different platforms measure different things, so don't add them together. Google counts impressions. Bing's AI Performance report (opens in new tab), in public preview since February 2026, counts citations and average cited pages per day, and Microsoft says the dashboard doesn't indicate ranking or placement. A citation and an impression are not the same event, and neither is a visit.
If impressions and clicks are new territory for you, our explainer on average position in Search Console covers how those metrics relate in the main Performance report.
Why Inclusion Does Not Guarantee AI Visibility
Setting the control to Include removes one barrier. It doesn't clear the rest of the path. Google's guidance spells out the conditions a page has to meet before it can be shown as a supporting link, and after that, the AI feature still chooses among many eligible pages.
- Search generative AI control set to Include
- Not blocked by noindex or robots.txt
- Snippets allowed on the pages that matter
- Page crawled and indexed
- Eligible to show with a snippet
- Content that's clear, original and useful
- Relevance to the specific question
- Google's ranking and quality systems
- Many other eligible pages competing
Google's requirement is short. To be eligible as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet (opens in new tab). It adds: "There are no additional technical requirements." The same page says you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special structured data to appear.
- 01CrawlableCan Googlebot reach the page, or does robots.txt or a login block it?
- 02IndexedDoes URL Inspection say the page is on Google?
- 03Snippet-eligibleIs there a nosnippet or tight max-snippet rule on the page?
- 04IncludedIs the property's Search generative AI control on Include, directly or through its parent?
- 05Relevant and usefulDoes the page clearly answer the kind of question people ask?
- 06SelectedDid Google choose it for this answer, for this person, at this moment?
Independent research points the same way: organic strength helps, but it isn't the whole story. In a study published October 13, 2026 (opens in new tab), the AEO agency Minuttia and Convex Works ran more than 24,000 prompts across Google AI Overviews and four AI assistants. They found that 41.7% of domains cited in AI Overviews for broad category searches also ranked in Google's organic top 10, which means most cited domains didn't. Brands that did rank in the top 10 were 6.8 to 11.6 times more likely to be named in answers. The authors stress that these are associations from a single test of each prompt in one market, not proof of cause.
Results also vary between platforms. The same study found only 9.1% of brands recommended for category searches appeared in all five engines' answers. Separately, a Semrush study published July 20, 2026 (opens in new tab), covering ChatGPT only, found that just 15.2% of 1,094 US topic categories had one brand that clearly "owned" the answers, and that the most-cited sites were often not the most-mentioned brands. Both studies come from companies that sell AI visibility services or tools.
A Practical 15-Minute AI Search Audit
This is a first look, not a full technical SEO audit. It tells you whether anything obvious is in the way and gives you a short list to act on. Set a timer, open Search Console, and work through it in order.
- Minutes 0 to 2. Confirm access. Can you open your property, and are you an owner? If not, find out who is.
- Minutes 2 to 4. Review the AI control. Settings → AI controls → Search generative AI. Write down the current control and any "Inherit control from" line.
- Minutes 4 to 7. Check your five most important pages for indexing. Paste each URL into the URL Inspection bar and note whether it's on Google. Think homepage, main service pages and your contact page.
- Minutes 7 to 9. Open Performance → Generative AI. Set the range to 3 months. Note total impressions and the top pages. If the report is missing, note that too.
- Minutes 9 to 11. Inspect crawlability and internal links. Are your key pages linked from your main menu or homepage? Does your sitemap include them?
- Minutes 11 to 13. Read one key page as a stranger would. Does it clearly say what you do, for whom, where, and what it costs or how it works?
- Minutes 13 to 15. Record your findings and pick no more than three next steps, in the order of the chain above.
AI Search settings self-check
Your answers stay in this browser tab. Nothing is sent, saved or tracked, and there's no score: just a list of what's in place and what to fix first.
Your result
Answer the questions above and your list appears here. Answer “Not sure” honestly: if you're not sure, assume it isn't in place.
Mistakes to Avoid
| Mistake | Why it misleads | Better approach |
|---|---|---|
| Treating Include as a ranking guarantee | It's permission to be considered, and it's on by default for everyone | Check eligibility and usefulness, not just the setting |
| Confusing indexing with ranking | Indexed pages can still rarely appear for anything | Use the Performance and Generative AI reports to see where pages actually show |
| Trusting a single AI prompt test | Answers vary by person, place, wording and time | Look at months of report data; treat spot checks as anecdotes |
| Publishing thin pages to win citations | Google says pages made mainly to manipulate AI responses can violate its scaled content abuse policy | Publish fewer, more specific pages built on real experience |
| Buying fake mentions or reviews | Google calls inauthentic mentions less helpful than they seem, and fake reviews break platform rules | Earn genuine reviews and real coverage over time |
| Adding "AI schema" or llms.txt as a fix | Google says Search doesn't use AI text files and needs no special schema | Use structured data for rich results, not as an AI shortcut |
- Why it misleads
- It's permission to be considered, and it's on by default for everyone
- Better approach
- Check eligibility and usefulness, not just the setting
- Why it misleads
- Indexed pages can still rarely appear for anything
- Better approach
- Use the Performance and Generative AI reports to see where pages actually show
- Why it misleads
- Answers vary by person, place, wording and time
- Better approach
- Look at months of report data; treat spot checks as anecdotes
- Why it misleads
- Google says pages made mainly to manipulate AI responses can violate its scaled content abuse policy
- Better approach
- Publish fewer, more specific pages built on real experience
- Why it misleads
- Google calls inauthentic mentions less helpful than they seem, and fake reviews break platform rules
- Better approach
- Earn genuine reviews and real coverage over time
- Why it misleads
- Google says Search doesn't use AI text files and needs no special schema
- Better approach
- Use structured data for rich results, not as an AI shortcut
On that last point, Google's optimization guide (opens in new tab) is unusually direct: creating llms.txt or similar files "will neither harm nor help" your visibility in Google Search. It also warns that "no third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems", which is worth remembering when a tool promises to show your exact AI ranking.
What Should Small Businesses Do Next?
Work through this in order. Each step depends on the one before it, and most businesses will find their biggest gain in the first three.
- Secure owner access to Search Console and record who owns any parent property.
- Confirm the Search generative AI control is set the way you intend. For most local and service businesses, that's Include.
- Make sure your homepage and key service pages are indexed and allowed to show snippets.
- Save a baseline from the Generative AI report: three months of impressions and your top pages.
- Improve the pages that matter most to customers, starting with the ones that already earn some impressions.
- If you serve a local area, keep your Google Business Profile accurate. Google lists Business Profiles among the ways businesses can be visible in AI responses. Our Google Maps visibility checks walk through it.
- Review the report monthly, alongside clicks and enquiries, rather than reacting to day-to-day swings.
Expect this to be gradual. Indexing and content improvements take weeks to show up in search data, and AI features draw on the same systems. Our guide to how long SEO takes to work sets realistic expectations.
The Bottom Line
Google has given website owners two genuinely useful things: a clear switch for its AI features and a first, limited view of how often they appear in them. Spend five minutes confirming the switch is where you want it and who controls it. Then spend your real effort where it counts: pages that are indexed, easy to crawl and worth citing.
The report won't tell you everything yet. But it turns AI visibility from guesswork into something you can at least watch, month by month.
Social Stellor helps businesses build search visibility on solid foundations: indexable pages, clear content and reporting that shows what's actually happening. If you've run the 15-minute check and want help interpreting what you found, or you'd rather have someone handle it, tell us about your website and goals.
Talk to Us About SEOTo see what ongoing search work involves, visit Social Stellor's SEO service.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to opt in to appear in Google AI Overviews?
No. Google sets every property to Include by default. You only need to act if you want to exclude your site, or if a parent property has been set to Exclude and your property inherits it.
Will excluding my site from AI features hurt my normal Google rankings?
Google says the control isn't used as a ranking signal elsewhere in Search. You would lose impressions and traffic from AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover.
Does the Search generative AI control stop Google training AI on my content?
No. Google says the control doesn't affect training. Google-Extended, a robots.txt product token, is the tool Google points to for limiting use of your content to train the models behind these features.
Why is the Generative AI report missing from my Search Console?
Google says this usually means your site hasn't received enough impressions in AI features yet. It can also happen if your property is set to Exclude. Check that you're in the right property too.
Does this setting affect ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot?
No. It only applies to Google's generative AI features. Other assistants use their own crawlers and controls. Bing Webmaster Tools has a separate AI Performance report for Copilot and Bing's AI summaries.
Can I see which questions triggered my AI impressions?
Not in Google's report today. It shows impressions by page, country, device and date, but not queries or clicks. Google says more metrics will be added over time.
How long does a change to the control take?
Google says changes generally take a few days, and exclusion typically applies within one to two days after the change goes live. Some content can take longer because of caching.
Sources and Further Reading
All sources were checked November 3, 2026. The Search Console menu path and option labels were also confirmed in a live property that day. Google updates help pages and interfaces without notice, so check them for current wording. Independent studies are described with their publishers' stated limits.
- Search Console Help, "Search generative AI control" (opens in new tab)
- Search Console Help, "Generative AI performance report (Search)" (opens in new tab)
- Search Console Help, "Generative AI performance report (Discover)" (opens in new tab)
- Google Search Central Blog, "Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console" (opens in new tab), June 3, 2026, updated August 31, 2026
- The Keyword, "New opportunities, control and insights for website owners" (opens in new tab), June 3, 2026, updated August 31, 2026
- Google Search Central, "AI features and your website" (opens in new tab)
- Google Search Central, "Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search" (opens in new tab)
- Search Console Help, "Managing owners, users, and permissions" (opens in new tab)
- Bing Webmaster Blog, "Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview" (opens in new tab), February 10, 2026
- Minuttia, "AI Search Visibility Study" (opens in new tab), October 13, 2026
- Semrush, "AI visibility is a topic-level game: A study of 50,000 brands in ChatGPT" (opens in new tab), July 20, 2026