Motta Industries Blog

Business owners hear a steady stream of advice about AI in search. Some say every site should block AI features to protect its content. Others say that blocking anything will make a business invisible. Both positions skip the most useful step: looking at your own data and understanding what each control actually does.

Google Search Console now offers better visibility into how sites appear in generative AI features, and Google’s documentation describes the controls available to site owners. This guide walks through what those reports show, what the controls can and cannot do, and the questions worth asking before you decide to limit how your content appears.

Start with the data: Search Console’s generative AI reports

On June 3, 2026, Google announced Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console, including dedicated reports for Search and Discover. The announcement said the reports give dedicated views of impressions within generative AI features on Search, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, as well as generative AI features in Discover.

According to the post, the new reports show:

• Impressions: how often URLs from your site appeared in generative AI features in Search and Discover.
• Pages: which URLs appeared within AI features.
• Countries: visibility on a country basis.
• Devices: the devices people used when seeing your site, available for Search results.
• Dates: performance over time with hourly, daily, weekly and monthly granularity.

Google also said this data remains included in the overall performance report, with a separate view dedicated to visibility from generative AI features. The reports were rolling out to a subset of websites first, so not every property will see them right away.

It is worth being precise about what this is. The reports are a measurement tool. They are not a switch that removes your site from AI features. Decisions about participation are made through crawling and indexing controls, described below.

What the controls actually are

Google’s documentation page, AI features and your website, explains how AI Overviews and AI Mode relate to the rest of Search. It says AI is built into Search and integral to how Search functions, which is why robots.txt directives for Googlebot are the control site owners use to manage how their sites are crawled for Search.

To limit the information shown from your pages in Search, the documentation points to four controls:

• nosnippet, which prevents a text snippet from being shown for a page.
• data-nosnippet, which marks specific parts of a page that should not be used in snippets.
• max-snippet, which sets a maximum length for snippets.
• noindex, which keeps a page out of search results entirely.

The same page notes that to be eligible as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet. There are no additional technical requirements. In other words, the same rules that govern regular snippets govern AI features too.

Separately, Google offers Google-Extended. In a September 28, 2023 post, an update on web publisher controls, Google introduced Google-Extended as a control that publishers could use through robots.txt to manage whether their sites help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs. The current AI features documentation describes Google-Extended as a way to limit AI training and grounding in some of Google’s other systems. It is not presented as the control for appearing in Search.

Question one: what is AI visibility worth to you today?

Before changing anything, open the generative AI reports if your property has them, along with the standard Performance report. Google’s documentation says sites appearing in AI features are included in overall search traffic in Search Console, reported within the “Web” search type.

Look for patterns:

• Which pages appear most often in AI features?
• Are they pages that lead to enquiries or sales, or mostly general information?
• Which countries and devices account for the impressions?
• How have impressions changed over recent weeks?

Then compare with your analytics. The documentation suggests tracking conversions and time on site in tools such as Google Analytics, and notes Google has seen that clicks from results pages with AI Overviews are higher quality, meaning users are more likely to spend more time on the site. Your own numbers matter more than any general statement, so check whether that pattern holds for your business.

Question two: what exactly are you trying to protect?

“Opting out” can mean very different things. Clarify the goal first:

• Keeping certain details out of previews. If a page includes pricing, proprietary methods or information you prefer people read in full context, data-nosnippet on those sections may be enough.
• Limiting how much text is shown. max-snippet can shorten previews across a page.
• Removing a page from search. noindex does this, but it removes the page from regular results as well.
• Limiting use in other Google AI systems. Google-Extended addresses training and grounding in some other systems, not Search appearance.

Each goal has a different, narrower tool. Applying the broadest control to solve a small problem can cost far more traffic than it protects.

Question three: what will it cost in regular search?

Because AI features use the same eligibility rules as snippets, a control that blocks AI appearance usually affects classic results too. A nosnippet tag applied to a service page may remove its description from every result, making the listing less informative and less likely to be clicked. A noindex tag removes the page from search entirely.

Test on a small, representative set of pages first, before any wider rollout. Choose pages with modest traffic, apply the control, and compare performance over several weeks. Record exactly what you changed and when, so you can undo it if results disappoint.

Also consider indirect effects. A page that no longer shows a helpful description may receive fewer clicks, which can mean fewer people discovering related pages, signing up for a newsletter or remembering the business name for a later search. Those losses are harder to measure than a drop in impressions, but they are real. Weigh them honestly against the concern that prompted the change, and remember that a summary which mentions and links to your page can still introduce your business to someone who had never heard of it.

Question four: is the content worth showing in the first place?

Sometimes the impulse to opt out comes from frustration that AI features summarize a page instead of sending visitors to it. That can be a sign the page answers only a simple question that a summary covers well. Pages with depth, such as original advice, local expertise, detailed comparisons or clear next steps, give searchers a reason to click through.

The documentation’s guidance for appearing in AI features is the same as for Search overall: meet the technical requirements, follow Search policies and focus on helpful, reliable, people-first content. It also lists fundamentals such as allowing crawling, using internal links, providing a good page experience, keeping important content in text form and making sure structured data matches visible text. Improving pages through content updates may do more for a business than restricting them.

Question five: is the control implemented correctly?

If you do apply preview controls, verify them. Google’s documentation recommends making sure the control is correct and visible to Googlebot, and using the URL Inspection tool to see the HTML Googlebot received while crawling the page. It also says to allow time for recrawling and processing, noting that crawling can take anywhere from several days to several months depending on how often a page needs to be refreshed. You can request a recrawl after making changes.

Common mistakes include placing data-nosnippet on the wrong element, adding a robots meta tag through a script that does not load for crawlers, or blocking a page in robots.txt so Googlebot never sees its noindex tag.

Question six: who should be part of the decision?

Choices about search visibility affect more than the marketing team. Sales staff know which pages bring in serious leads. Customer service staff know which questions people ask repeatedly, and whether a short summary in search results would actually save everyone time. Leadership may have views about how the company’s expertise should be presented publicly, and any legal or compliance adviser may have concerns about specific claims or figures being shown out of context.

Bring these people together briefly before changing controls. Share the report data, explain what each control does in plain terms and agree on a goal. A short written note of the decision, including the reasoning, helps later when someone asks why a page stopped showing a description or why traffic shifted.

Question seven: when will you review the decision?

Search features change, reporting improves and your own business priorities shift over time. A choice that made sense this autumn may not make sense next year. Google’s June announcement said it was continuing to work with website owners on what insights would be most helpful, such as adding more metrics over time, so the data available to you may expand.

Set a review date when you make any change, perhaps every quarter. At each review, look again at AI impressions, regular search performance and conversions for the affected pages. Ask whether the original concern still applies and whether a narrower control would now serve the goal. Treat controls as adjustable settings, not permanent decisions, and keep the record of changes up to date so the next review starts from facts rather than memory.

A fictional example

Consider a fictional accounting firm that worried AI Overviews were summarizing its tax deadline articles. The owner considered adding nosnippet across the entire blog.

Before acting, the firm reviewed its generative AI report and analytics. The deadline articles did appear often, but visitors arriving from them rarely became clients. Its detailed guides on small business bookkeeping appeared less often but led to most consultation requests. Rather than block the whole blog, the firm used data-nosnippet on a fee table, rewrote the deadline articles to include practical checklists and links to its services, and refreshed the bookkeeping guides. It then monitored impressions and enquiries monthly.

A pre-opt-out checklist

• Review generative AI reports and the standard Performance report.
• Compare AI impressions with analytics conversions.
• Define exactly what you want to protect.
• Choose the narrowest control: data-nosnippet, max-snippet, nosnippet or noindex.
• Understand that Google-Extended addresses other Google systems, not Search appearance.
• Test changes on a small set of pages first.
• Verify implementation with URL Inspection.
• Document changes and review results over several weeks.
• Involve sales, service and leadership in the decision.
• Set a regular review date for every change.

Clear writing makes pages more useful whether a visitor arrives through a summary or a classic result; our copywriting team can help. For a broader strategy that considers AI features, contact our search engine optimization specialists.