Google’s new AI search toggle: should you opt out?

Every website can now opt out of Google’s AI search features. The setting in Search Console removes your site from AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI Overviews in Discover, and Google confirmed it rolled out to all websites worldwide on 31 August 2026, after testing it with a group of UK site owners.

For most small businesses the answer is still to stay in. The catch is that you are being asked to decide without the key number: Search Console shows how often you appear in AI answers, but not how many clicks those appearances bring. This guide covers what the toggle does and how to decide with the data you actually have.

What the Google AI search opt-out actually covers

The control lets you decide whether your site appears in, and helps ground answers in, Google's generative AI features. Google's help page calls the setting Search generative AI features, where your site is either included or excluded. Google is clear about the trade: sites that opt out "will not receive traffic or impressions" from those features, and the setting is not used as a ranking signal for normal results.

Three points catch people out:

• It is sitewide. Search Engine Land confirms the control works at site level. Search Engine Journal reports that page-level controls are not available yet and that the UK's Competition and Markets Authority has given Google until March 2027 to add them.
• It is not the same as Google-Extended. Google's documentation describes Google-Extended as the way to limit AI training and grounding in some of Google's other systems. It is a separate control from this toggle.
• Page-level options already exist, with side effects. Google's documentation lists nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex for limiting what appears. These also change how the page shows in regular results, and noindex removes it from Search entirely.

The data problem: impressions without clicks

The new generative AI performance report sits under Performance, then Search Analytics, then AI. It shows how often your pages appeared in AI features, broken down by page, country, device and date. It does not show clicks.

Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are not missing, just hidden. Google's documentation says they are counted in the normal Performance report under the Web search type, mixed in with regular results. Consultant Natalie Arney, quoted by Search Engine Journal, described the two announcements this way: one "gives publishers the exit door. The other shows what it would cost to walk through it." Without click data, that second half is only partly true.

How to decide with the data you have

1. Export three months of AI impressions by page from the AI report.
2. Export clicks for the same pages and dates from the standard Performance report.
3. Look for pages where AI impressions rose while clicks fell. If that pattern covers your money pages and most of the site, you have a case. If it covers a handful of pages, the sitewide switch is too blunt.
4. Ask what a mention is worth to you. A lead-generation business can win from being cited even without the click. A site paid per pageview usually cannot.
5. If you do opt out, date-stamp your baseline so you can compare clicks afterwards. Google's announcement does not say how quickly the change takes effect, so give it several weeks before judging.

Related guides in this series

• Google is testing AI Overview links that skip your website
• Measuring your search visibility in 2026, a quick guide
• Which AI search platform should you optimise for?
• SEO & GEO in 2026-2027: what still matters now

Published: September 2026 | Author: Minh Pham