Google begins testing two new Search Console features. One of them is a toggle that lets you control whether your site appears in AI generative search features. The other is dedicated performance reports showing when a site’s URLs appear in generative AI features through Search and discover.
Both features are rolling out to a subset of websites in the UK first. Google says it will expand availability globally after testing.
The AI visibility button
Sites that use the opt-out button will not receive traffic or impressions from AI Previews, AI Mode, or AI Previews in Discover. Google says the check will not be used as a ranking signal for search results outside of these AI features.
Google describes this as building on previous tools like Featured Snippet Controls and Google-Extended. Featured snippet controls manage how content is displayed in traditional search results. Google-Extended lets you prevent content from being used to train Google’s AI models.
This new option specifically indicates whether a site appears in live AI generative search experiences.
What the new reports show
According to Google’s blog, impressions indicate how often a site’s URLs appeared in the generative AI features of Search and Discover. Reports also break down data by page, country, device, and date, with granularity down to the hourly level.
Generative AI feature data was already included in the overall performance report. New reports provide a dedicated view of AI visibility.
The reports omit click data and query-level metrics, which are critical to site owners’ performance. Google “continues to work with website owners to understand what information will be most useful” and plans to add more metrics over time.
Background
We’ve been asking Google for AI-specific data in Search Console since the launch of US AI Previews in 2024.
When Google confirmed that AI Mode data was factored into Search Console totalsthere was no way to isolate AI-generated traffic from organic search in reporting. John Mueller clarified that all links in an AI preview share a single position in Search Console, making it difficult to assess which placements are performing well.
Our coverage has consistently tracked the measurement gap. Two weeks ago we reported that Google had expanded link surfaces in AI features without providing click data specific to these surfaces.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has moved faster in AI research reporting. Bing Webmaster Tools launched an AI Performance dashboard in February. He added grounding of query-page mapping in March and previewed Sharing Quotes at SEO Week in May.
Why it matters
The new reports offer the first dedicated view of a website’s visibility in Google’s AI search features, giving you a clearer picture than previous grouped reports, where AI-based visibility was difficult to isolate in Search Console.
What’s missing is click data specific to AI features. Impressions tell you how often your pages appeared, but not how often people clicked on those appearances. This gap has been the central issue in SEJ’s coverage of AI Search measurement for over a year, and this announcement doesn’t yet close it.
Looking to the future
Google says it will test both features on a subset of UK websites before rolling them out globally. The company says it will add more metrics to the reports over time, but did not specify specific additions or timelines.
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