Free Check: Is Search Console Hiding You From AI Overviews and AI Mode?

This check answers one question: has your Search Console account told Google to keep your site out of its generative AI features?

As of Google's help documentation verified in August 2026, the control covers three surfaces:

• AI Overviews
• AI Mode
• Generative AI features in Google Discover

Google says it expects to update that list over time. Inclusion is the default, so most sites never need to touch it. You don't have to opt in to appear in AI Overviews.

The risk is the exception. A property that has been opted out, on purpose or by inheritance, is excluded from those surfaces regardless of anything else you fix. If your content is server-rendered, indexed and allowed in robots.txt, this setting can still remove it. That makes it one of the cheapest checks with one of the largest possible consequences.

Most access problems leave traces a crawler can find. A noindex tag sits in the HTML. A robots.txt rule sits at a public URL. A firewall block shows up as a 403 when you request the page as a bot.

This control leaves nothing on your site. It lives in your Search Console account, and there's no API for it. An agency, a consultant or an audit tool can't detect it unless someone with access looks.

Three things make it easy to miss:

• Inheritance. Google's documentation says the default for child properties is "Inherit control from parent." Change the parent and every inheriting child follows.
• Partial rollout. Google said it was rolling the control out to a subset of website owners, so many teams have never seen it and don't know it exists.
• Shared accounts. Large sites often have many properties and many users. One person can change the parent setting without the others knowing.

For a full method across many properties, see our playbook on auditing inherited AI controls across GSC properties.

You need owner or full access to the Search Console properties for your site. Google's menu labels can change, so read for the meaning, not the exact wording.

1. Sign in at https://search.google.com/search-console and open the property picker.
2. List every property tied to your site: the domain property, any URL-prefix properties, and any subdomain or subfolder properties. Write them down, parent first.
3. Open the parent property and go to its settings. Look for the control that governs AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover generative AI features.
4. Record its state. It is either at the default (included) or opted out.
5. Open each child property in turn. Record whether it says "Inherit control from parent" or has its own setting.
6. If you don't find the control on any property, note that. Your account may not have received it yet.
7. Ask whoever else manages the account whether anyone changed the setting, and when. A date helps you match it against traffic or impression changes.

Our guide to Google's AI features control in Search Console explains what each state means in more detail.

Map what you found to one of four outcomes.

If the opt-out was deliberate, keep it, and know what it does. Google says the control isn't used as a ranking or inclusion signal for other parts of Search, so opting out doesn't hurt your rankings in classic results.

If you're unsure whether the control has affected you, the Search Console generative AI performance report is a useful cross-check. It shows impressions only, with no clicks or position. Our page on seeing AI Overview impressions free in Search Console covers how to read it and the August 2026 reporting bug to avoid.

A clean result here removes one block. It doesn't put you in AI answers.

Google's AI features documentation states that to be shown 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. Google adds that indexing and serving isn't guaranteed. So the setting is necessary, not sufficient.

The check also doesn't cover:

• Index status. Run a free index status check for Google and Bing separately.
• On-page suppression. noindex, nosnippet, max-snippet:0 and data-nosnippet can keep content out of AI answers. Check them with the free noindex and nosnippet check.
• Googlebot robots.txt rules. There is no robots.txt token for AI Overviews or AI Mode. Googlebot rules are the robots.txt control for all Google surfaces.
• Gemini apps. These are governed by Google-Extended, a separate crawler token, not this setting.
• What Google decides to show. AI Overviews often don't trigger, and Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode may use different models and techniques.

For this check, no outside tool is faster than Search Console itself, because no outside tool can see the setting. Be wary of any service that claims to read it without your account access.

What an outside check can do is show symptoms. The free checker on this site runs up to three buyer questions through AI engines and shows whether you are named. If Google's AI surfaces never mention you while other engines do, that pattern is a reason to open Search Console and run the steps above.

Then fix in order: this control, index status, snippet controls, crawler access. Each one is a block you can remove. None of them guarantees a citation.

Does opting out of Google's AI features stop Google using my content? Not entirely. Google's help documentation says opting out of display doesn't stop content being used to power Google Search as a whole, such as helping its systems understand the language of users' queries. The control governs whether your pages appear in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover generative features. Training for Gemini apps is a separate matter, controlled through the Google-Extended token in robots.txt.

Is this the same as blocking Google-Extended? No. Google-Extended is a robots.txt token. Google says it cuts training and grounding for Gemini apps and Vertex AI, and does not affect inclusion in Google Search or act as a ranking signal. The Search Console control covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover generative features. Changing one does not change the other, so check both if you are auditing your AI exposure.

Can I block AI Overviews with robots.txt instead? Not with a dedicated token. Google says AI is built into Search, so robots.txt rules for Googlebot are the control, and blocking Googlebot removes you from Google Search too. For finer control, Google documents nosnippet, max-snippet, noindex and data-nosnippet as on-page options. The Search Console control is the property-level option for the generative surfaces.

Will turning the default back on get me into AI Overviews? It restores eligibility from this control, nothing more. Google still requires the page to be indexed and eligible for a snippet, and says serving isn't guaranteed. Whether a given query triggers an AI Overview, and which pages it cites, is Google's decision. Fix the block, then check indexing and snippet controls, and measure what happens rather than expecting a set result.

How often should I recheck this setting? Recheck whenever someone new gets account access, when you add or restructure properties, and after any unexplained drop in AI impressions. Because children inherit from the parent by default, a single change can spread quietly. Google also said the list of covered surfaces may change over time, so a quick look each quarter is a reasonable habit for most teams.