So Google went and did something a lot of publishers have been asking for since 2023 - they gave us an actual switch. Not a workaround, not a half-measure like Google-Extended, an actual toggle sitting in Search Console under Settings > Search generative AI. Flip it and you're deciding whether your site's content gets to feed AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Discover's AI stuff. Flip it the other way and none of that happens, but - and this is the part people gloss over - your regular rankings don't move an inch either way.
I'll be honest, when this rolled out I assumed it'd be another one of those settings buried three menus deep that nobody actually uses. It's not. It's had a real rollout, it's live worldwide as of late August, and for anyone in Australia leaning on organic traffic, it's probably worth five minutes of your attention.
Okay, But What Does the Setting Actually Do?
There are basically two real choices (three if you count inheritance, which we'll get to):
- AI Overviews
- AI Mode
- Discover's generative AI stuff
Include is the default - always has been, for every property. It means your pages can show up as a linked source and can be used to help "ground" whatever answer the AI spits out. Exclude does the opposite: no citations, no links, nothing pulled from your site to build those answers.
Then there's Inherit from parent, which is really just a convenience thing - a subdomain following whatever the main domain has set, so you're not fiddling with the same toggle across ten properties.
Why You'd Actually Want to Use This
1. It finally separates "in AI features" from "ranking in Search"
Before this existed, your only real lever was blocking crawling altogether - which, sure, keeps you out of AI answers, but also nukes your regular search visibility, which is a much bigger traffic source for almost everyone. Nobody sane was doing that trade. Now you don't have to. You can stay fully rankable and just say no to the AI part specifically.
2. Stops Google handing your work away for free, sort of
If you've noticed your content getting chewed up and summarised in an AI Overview with zero clicks coming back - that's the thing this fixes. Turn it off and Google can't use your stuff to build that "free" answer that satisfies someone before they ever land on your site. For anyone whose business model actually depends on the click (subscription content, comparison sites, that sort of thing), this is probably the whole reason to care about this feature at all.
3. You don't have to guess anymore
There's a companion report - the Generative AI performance report - that shows impressions broken down by page, country, device, date. So instead of flipping the switch on a hunch, you can actually look at what you'd be giving up first. Genuinely useful, and honestly overdue.
4. Doesn't touch anything else
Google's said pretty plainly this isn't a ranking signal for normal search. Doesn't affect your position in the regular results, doesn't touch Ads, doesn't touch Merchant Center. It's its own lane.
5. Plays nicely at scale
If you're running an agency or managing a bunch of properties under one brand, set the policy once at the parent level and let everything else inherit it. Override individual properties only where it matters.
How to Actually Turn It Off (If You Decide To)
- Open Google Search Console for the property you want to change.
- Go to Settings, find Search generative AI.
- Have a read of what Include/Exclude/Inherit each actually mean - don't just click blind.
- Pick Exclude my site's links and content from Search generative AI features.
- Hit Save. Google says it usually starts respecting the change within a day or two, though caching can drag that out a bit longer sometimes.
What You're Actually Giving Up
Not going to pretend this is a free lunch:
- The AI answer still gets written - Google just pulls from someone else's site instead of yours. And yeah, it might end up sounding suspiciously close to what you would've said anyway.
- You lose whatever impressions or clicks were coming through those AI surfaces, small as that might be right now.
- It's all-or-nothing per property. Can't cherry-pick your best pages and protect just those - you'd need to shove them onto a separate verified property if that level of control matters to you.
Where SEO, AEO and GEO Actually Fit Into This
Google's own line these days is that AEO and GEO - answer engine optimisation and generative engine optimisation, if those terms are new to you - aren't really separate disciplines from SEO. They're just SEO applied to a different-looking results page. Structure, usefulness, technical soundness - same fundamentals, different surface. Which, honestly, tracks. Nothing about this control changes what makes content good.
For most small-to-mid Australian businesses, my honest take is: leave it on Include, keep writing genuinely useful stuff, and don't overthink the toggle. Exclusion earns its keep mostly for publishers whose whole model lives or dies on the click - subscription news, comparison sites, premium editorial.
Not sure which side of that line you sit on? Our SEO agency can pull your Generative AI performance report alongside the rest of your organic numbers and actually help you decide, rather than guessing.
The Fundamentals Don't Change Either Way
Whichever way you set this thing, the actual work that gets you visibility stays the same. Solid content built around real search intent still does most of the heavy lifting, AI feature or not. Pair that with a technically sound site built through proper web development services - loads fast, easy for people and crawlers to move through - and you're in good shape regardless of how the results page keeps shifting.
If you want the whole picture handled together, our digital marketing agency Australia team covers SEO, content and web performance as one strategy rather than three separate headaches. And if it's been a while since you checked how AI-ready your site actually is, we wrote up what a proper SEO audit should look like in 2026 - worth a read before you decide anything here.
Questions People Actually Ask About This
Will excluding my site hurt my normal Google rankings?
No. Google's confirmed this only touches AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover's AI stuff - it's not a ranking or inclusion signal for regular Search.
How long until the change kicks in?
Usually a day or two, Google says, though caching on their end can stretch that out a bit further sometimes.
Can I just exclude a few pages, not the whole site?
Nope, not with this control - it's property-wide. If you need to protect specific content only, you'd have to split it onto its own separate verified property.
Does this mess with my Ads or Merchant Center stuff?
No, completely separate. Whatever you've got set up there keeps running regardless of this toggle.
Is this the same thing as Google-Extended?
Different thing. Google-Extended is about AI training and grounding more broadly. This control is specifically about whether you show up in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover's AI features.
