Technical ·
Should you opt out of Google's AI Overviews?
Almost never, for a CPG brand. Opting out removes your links and content from AI Overviews and AI Mode, but Google keeps answering the question with other people's pages.
Since August 31, 2026, every site has a Search generative AI setting in Search Console. Choosing Exclude means your pages stop showing up as links in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover's AI features, and stop being used to ground those answers. Google's own help page notes that content from other sites will still appear there, and may look similar to yours. So the summary of your product gets written from retailer pages, reviewers and forums instead of you. The setting doesn't affect AI training (that's Google-Extended in robots.txt) and doesn't override Merchant Center. It's worth checking that nobody flipped it by accident, especially on a blog or recipe section set up as its own property.
Do this
- Open Search Console, go to Settings, then Search generative AI, and confirm the property says Include, or Inherit from a parent that says Include.
- Check every URL-prefix property you own (a /blog/ or /recipes/ property, say), because a child property can override the domain setting.
- Before anyone changes it, look at the Generative AI performance report to see the impressions and clicks you would be giving up.
- If the real worry is AI training, use the Google-Extended token in robots.txt instead. It doesn't remove you from AI Overviews.