Google is rolling out new Search Generative AI performance reports within Google Search Console and is also testing the ability to block your content from showing up in AI Mode and AI Overviews with a “toggle” within Search Console.
Search Generative AI Performance report. Google Search Console, as expected, is rolling out a new report to give you some data, but not all, on how well your content and websites are performing within the AI responses, AI Mode and AI Overviews, within Google Search. The reporting includes impressions, pages, countries, devices and dates but does not include click data. Yea, Google won’t be telling us how many searchers click from AI responses in Google Search to our sites – there is no surprise there.
Google said:
- We’re also starting to roll out new insights for website owners in Search Console about the appearance of their pages in generative AI Search features. These insights include impressions metrics and information about which pages appear in AI responses and in what countries. We’re continuing to work with website owners to understand what insights will be most helpful to inform their strategies, and we’ll introduce additional metrics over time.
Google shared more details on the metrics you will get from this new report, they include:
- Impressions: How often URLs from your site appeared in generative AI features in Search and Discover.
- Pages: Check which URLs appeared within AI features.
- Countries: Understand your visibility on a country basis.
- Devices: Identify the devices people are using when seeing your website (available for Search results).
- Dates: Monitor your performance over time with hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly granularity.
I asked about click data and a Google spokesperson told me, “We’re continuing to work with website owners to understand what insights will be most helpful to inform their strategies, and we’ll introduce additional metrics over time.”
This new report is rolling out to a subset of website owners in the UK at first and will expand globally at some point in the future.
For more details on this report, see this Google help center document.
AI blocking controls. Google also said it is adding a “new toggle” within Google Search Console to allow sites to block their content from showing in AI search features such as AI Overviews, AI Mode or AI Overviews in Discover. Google wrote, “website owners can decide if they want their site to appear in and help ground responses in our generative AI Search features.”
Google noted that “sites that opt out will not receive traffic or impressions from our generative AI features.” However, this control will not be used as a ranking signal for search results outside of these generative AI Search features, so it should not negatively impact your site on core web search.
Google added that this control is just for a subset of website owners in the UK. Google will expand access to more site owners in the future, after sufficient testing is completed. Google did promise these controls were coming after some backlash from the EU, so now they are starting to roll out.
Early studies showed that 1/3rd of SEOs would block Google from showing their content in AI search features.
UK requirement/law. Google was forced to do this by the UK government, which is why this was released first in the UK only. Google does say this will be expanded but right now, it is only available in the UK. The CMA wrote:
- Google will now also have to allow publishers to opt-out of allowing their content to be used for the ‘fine-tuning’ of AI models. This provides publishers with confidence that they will have control over the full range of AI use-cases of their content.
Why we care. Site owners and publishers have been asking for controls over if and how their content is shown in Google’s AI features since Google launched these a couple of years ago. Well, now Google is rolling out such a feature to some users today. It is unclear how soon everyone will gain access to these controls, but they should come to all eventually.
Plus, we have been asking Google for AI Search reporting since day one as well. This is Google’s first step towards that, shortly after Bing Webmaster Tools released its AI performance report. Neither Google or Bing’s reports have click data, and we don’t expect them ever to, but for now, at least Bing’s report is global while Google’s report is a subset of UK site owners.
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