How do I stop my content showing in Google's AI Overviews?

Option 1: the Search generative AI control in Search Console

Google's Search Console help page describes a site-level setting for this. It covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Google Discover, and Google says it expects to update that list over time. It has been available to all websites worldwide since 31 August 2026.

1. Open Search Console and select the property.
2. Go to Settings, then Search generative AI.
3. Choose Exclude my site's links and content from Search generative AI features.

The other choices are Include my site's links and content in Search generative AI features, which is the default for a top-level property, and Inherit control from parent, which is the default for a child property that sits under a domain property. A child property can override its parent, and owners of the domain property are told when that happens.

Google says the change generally takes a few days, with content excluded within one to two days after the control goes live, though caching can make some content take longer. Once excluded, your links and content will not appear in those features and your crawled content will not be used as input for their responses. Google says the control is not a ranking or inclusion signal for the rest of Search.

Option 2: snippet controls on specific pages

If you only want to hold back certain pages or passages, Google's AI features page points to the standard preview controls. The robots meta tag specification explains how each one affects AI features:

• <meta name="robots" content="nosnippet">: no text snippet in results, and the content will not be used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode.
• <meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:50">: limits the snippet to 50 characters and also limits how much content can be used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode. A value of 0 is the same as nosnippet.
• data-nosnippet on a span, div or section element: keeps that part of the page out of snippets. Other elements are not valid for this attribute.

The trade-off is that these rules also shrink or remove your snippet in ordinary search results, which can lower clicks there.

Option 3: noindex

A noindex robots meta tag or X-Robots-Tag: noindex header removes the page from Google Search altogether. Google's help page says that if you want to block content from Google Search completely, use noindex. That removes it from AI features too, but you lose all search traffic to that page.

What Google-Extended does and does not control

Many people block Google-Extended expecting it to remove them from AI Overviews. According to Google's common crawlers page, Google-Extended is a robots.txt product token for managing whether content Google crawls may be used to train future Gemini models, and for grounding in Gemini Apps and Grounding with Google Search on Vertex AI. It has no separate user agent string.

The same page says it does not affect a site's inclusion in Google Search and is not used as a ranking signal. The AI features page explains why: AI is built into Search, so access for Search features is controlled through Googlebot. To limit AI Overviews and AI Mode, use the Search Console control or the snippet rules, not Google-Extended.

Blocking Googlebot itself in robots.txt is not a sensible alternative. It stops Google crawling the page for all of Search, and the robots meta tag page notes that a page blocked by robots.txt cannot have its meta rules read.

Checking it has worked

• Use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to confirm Googlebot can see your snippet rules, as the AI features page advises, then request a recrawl if needed.
• Watch the Generative AI performance report for impressions falling away. Google's help page notes the report may be hidden once a site is excluded.

Sources

• Search Console Help: Search generative AI control
• Google Search Central: AI features and your website
• Google Search Central: Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet and X-Robots-Tag specifications
• Google Crawling: Google's common crawlers (Google-Extended)
• Search Console Help: Generative AI performance report (Search)

Frequently asked questions

Will excluding my site from AI Overviews hurt my rankings?

Google says the Search generative AI control is not used as a ranking or inclusion signal for other parts of Search, so your normal results should be unaffected. You will lose any traffic and impressions you were getting from AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover's generative AI features. Google says your content may still be used to help it understand queries and pages in general.

Does the Search generative AI control stop Google training on my content?

No. Google's help page says the control does not affect AI training. To limit training of the Gemini models, use the Google-Extended token in robots.txt. Google-Extended covers Gemini model training and grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI, but it does not affect inclusion in Google Search, so you may need both settings depending on what you want.