Google's generative AI performance report in Search Console answers one question well: how often your pages were shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It can't tell you whether anyone clicked. Set that beside what your analytics can see and the gap is plain. Right now, no tool a small business has can tell you how many visits Google's AI answers sent you.
Here's how we got there. The report has no click data and no query data. Your analytics can show Google organic referrals, time on site and conversions, but can't assign visits to AI Overviews or AI Mode. One tool counts appearances without visits. The other counts visits without knowing which came from AI. That conclusion is ours, drawn from the two sources together, and nothing joins those two tools up.
That gap shapes the rest of this guide. It affects how you read the report, and how you think about the switch that removes your site from these features.
Where each tool can see, and where it can't
Follow one search from question to enquiry and the blind spot sits in the middle.
Google says AI feature data is included in the overall performance report. Its guide says sites in AI features are counted in the Performance report under the "Web" search type. So clicks from AI answers are in Search Console somewhere, mixed in with your ordinary results. The new report, the one that separates AI out, counts impressions only.
The same Google guide describes clicks from pages with AI Overviews as "higher quality", meaning people are more likely to spend longer on the site. That's Google's own description, and the page was last updated before these reports existed. Because of the gap above, you can't check it against your own visits.
Can I see how often my site appears in Google's AI answers?
Yes, as appearances. Google announced the Search Generative AI performance reports on 3 June 2026, with separate views for Search and Discover. A note added later to the same post reads: "As of August 31, 2026, we've rolled out these insights to all websites worldwide."
The report counts impressions in generative AI features, namely AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search, plus generative AI features in Discover. You can break those down by pages, countries, devices and dates. The device split is in the Search view only, and dates run hourly, daily, weekly or monthly.
An impression means your page was shown inside an AI answer. It doesn't tell you that someone read the answer, noticed your link or chose you. Read it as presence. Don't read it as traffic, and don't read it as success.
How do I read the report on a small site?
No report at all? Google says that if you still don't see it, there may not be enough data for your site. As at 31 August, Google's help pages also still said rollout was in progress, and that sites with too few AI impressions might not see a report. For a local service business, a missing report usually reflects low volume. It doesn't mean something is broken.
Start with Pages. This view tells you which of your pages Google's AI features are showing. Open each one and read it as a stranger would. Does it say plainly what you do, where you do it and how to get in touch? If an old blog post appears there and your main service page doesn't, that old post is now speaking for your business.
Watch weeks, not days. A single day's figure on a small site can swing a long way on very few appearances. Weekly or monthly views give a steadier picture.
Check the data is fresh. Google's spam update ran from 24 September to 8 October 2026. On 11 October the performance report was running 44 to 64 hours behind. Figures from around then may be stale or shifted. Before you read meaning into a dip, check the date of the latest day in your chart.
Read it next to your other numbers. The ordinary Performance report still holds your clicks. Your analytics hold your visits and enquiries. If your site runs on WordPress, our guide to measuring WordPress website performance covers that side.
Do I need special markup to appear in AI Overviews?
You don't need special markup, AI text files or new schema, because Google says there are “no additional requirements” beyond SEO fundamentals.
A page has to be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet, and indexing and serving are never guaranteed. In practice that means the ordinary work: pages Google can crawl, with your important content written as text. Our search engine optimisation page is the place to start on that.
What does the Search generative AI control switch off?
The control sits in Search Console under Settings and is property-specific. It lets you exclude your site's links and content from AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover's generative AI features.
It has three options:
- Include is the default.
- Exclude removes your content from these features, including the links to it.
- Inherit control from parent applies to child properties.
Google says the control “isn't used as a ranking or inclusion signal affecting other parts of Search”, as Search Engine Roundtable reported it. Your ordinary listings are a separate matter.
On timing, a change takes effect within 1 to 2 days, though some content may take longer because of caching. Google began respecting the control from 17 June 2026.
If your site has both a domain property and URL-prefix properties, check every one of them. Child properties inherit from their closest parent, and a child can override the parent's setting. Since 6 October 2026, the owner of the top-level property sees a notice when a child overrides it.
Changing this setting doesn't override Merchant Center or Google Ads choices. Those are separate decisions.
Which switch does what?
Several levers get confused with this one, so here they are side by side.
The Search control isn't Google-Extended. Google-Extended governs training and grounding for Gemini apps and Vertex AI and doesn't affect Search inclusion. The Search control, for its part, has no impact on AI training.
Robots.txt, noindex and nosnippet aren't an AI-only opt-out either. Nosnippet removes content from AI Overviews, but it also removes your ordinary snippets.
Should I opt out of AI Overviews?
That's your call. At JezNorthWeb we'd rather set out what's known than push you either way.
Here's what is known. Search Engine Journal's view is that the numbers to settle whether AI visibility is worth the traffic it may replace “don't exist yet”. The same analysis notes that opinion is split, and that some arguments come from vendors who sell AI-visibility services. Because analytics can't separate AI visits, there's no clean AI traffic baseline to weigh an opt-out against.
A few questions can help you decide without guessing at traffic:
- Are you comfortable with Google summarising the pages listed in your Pages view?
- Do you have more than one Search Console property, and do you know what each is set to?
- Are you mixing this choice up with Google-Extended or with your ads settings? They're separate.
Whatever you choose, note the date you changed it. A change takes 1 to 2 days to apply, so a before-and-after reading in your reports needs those dates.
What changes next, and when to look again
The control exists because of a UK ruling. On 3 June 2026 the UK Competition and Markets Authority imposed a publisher conduct requirement on Google. It requires effective controls over how search content is used in generative AI, plus “clear and detailed metrics on user engagement” with that content. That's a UK requirement, not Australian law. The switch it produced, though, sits in Search Console for every property.
According to Search Engine Journal, the CMA expects click-through data and has set March 2027 for page-level controls. Google reports on compliance every six months in the first year. As at 31 August, no click reporting had been announced. For now the control works on a whole property, not page by page.
March 2027 is a sensible point to look at the report again and see whether it has changed.
Your next step
Open the Pages view this month and read each page Google's AI features are showing. Make sure each one says plainly what you do and how to reach you. Leave the markup myths alone. If you touch the control, check every property and note the date. Then look again around March 2027.
If you'd like a second pair of eyes on what your report is showing, get in touch with JezNorthWeb and tell us what you're seeing.
Sources
- https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/06/gen-ai-performance-reports
- https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-generative-ai-tools-live-41984.html
- https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-console-ai-reports-rolled-out-worldwide/587836
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
- https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-generative-ai-control-explained-41569.html
- https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-generative-ai-control-add-42236.html
- https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-opting-out-of-googles-ai-search-features-means-now/584321/
- https://www.gov.uk/find-digital-markets-measures/google-search-publisher-conduct-requirement
- https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-performance-report-delayed-42271.html
