Google will allow websites to opt out of AI overviews

Google AI Summaries and AI mode can be useful tools, but users and website owners have had their fair proportion of complaints about these features. Now, Google is testing a new option to allow websites to opt out of its generative AI search results.

Google announced today that it will add a new control that will allow website owners to manage how their content appears in the company’s AI search features.

The new toggle will appear in Search Console. Webmasters can use it to ensure that Google does not use content from their websites to provide search results in its generative AI search features, including AI overviews and AI mode.

Naturally, opting out of these features will mean that websites will also not receive traffic from those results. However, the company has confirmed that it will not use this setting as a ranking signal. Therefore, website owners can safely opt out of using AI generative search tools without affecting their website’s ranking in Google Search.

This new control is a direct result of the recent decision of the UK Competition and Markets Authority. decisionordering Google to give publishers more control over how the company uses their content.

Meanwhile, Google is also adding new insights to Search Console. These will include data such as impressions and views from AI search functions. Although the company doesn’t say it outright (obviously, it won’t), it may very well want website owners to be tempted to opt out of AI Search once they see the impressions and visits their websites receive from features like AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Possibly to the same end, the company also announced today that AI Overviews has more than 2.5 billion monthly active users, and AI Mode also surpassed 1 billion monthly users.

Recently, Google has also made its generative AI features more useful for publishers. Increased the number of inline links that appear within AI responses and also added “Preferred sources” for AI overviews and AI mode.

This new control, although required by the UK CMA, is obviously not something Google would want website owners and publishers to use. It’s currently available to a small group of website owners in the UK, and the company says it will roll out the controls globally once it has conducted extensive testing; As for when that might happen, your guess is as good as ours.