Can Google's AI see your website?

How Google's AI finds websites

AI Overviews and AI Mode are part of Google Search, and they cite pages from Google's search index. Google's rule is short: a page can appear as a link in them if it's indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet. Google says there are no other technical requirements.

So the crawler that matters is Googlebot, the same one as for ordinary search. Unlike most AI crawlers, Googlebot runs JavaScript, so a site built with a JavaScript framework can still be read, as long as nothing blocks the scripts. Google reads the first 15 MB of each file.

Both features may run several related searches for one question, which Google calls query fan-out. A page can be cited for a question it doesn't match word for word, and AI Mode often shows more links than a classic results page.

Four controls, and what each one does

Google gives you four ways to limit how its AI uses your site. They're easy to mix up:

The Search Console setting is new. Google rolled it out to every site on August 31, 2026. If you exclude your site, Google says your links and content won't appear in those features and you get no traffic or impressions from them. Content from other sites may still appear, and it says the setting isn't a ranking signal for the rest of Search. Changes take effect within a day or two, sometimes longer.

Google-Extended doesn't change whether you appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Google says it isn't used for inclusion or ranking in Search.

What this checks

• Whether your robots.txt lets Googlebot read your homepage, and Google-Extended too.
• Whether your homepage says noindex, which keeps it out of Search and so out of AI Overviews and AI Mode.
• Whether it says nosnippet or max-snippet:0, which stop Google showing a snippet, and so stop the AI features from using the page. The check reads both your meta tags and the X-Robots-Tag header, including rules addressed to Googlebot only.

It can't see your Search Console setting: only you can. Open Search Console, go to Settings, then Search generative AI, and check it says to include your site.

If Google's AI can't use your site

Remove noindex and nosnippet from pages you want cited, and make sure robots.txt doesn't block Googlebot. If you only want to keep some text out of answers, data-nosnippet on that element is gentler than nosnippet on the whole page.

Then check the page in Search Console's URL Inspection. It tells you whether Google has indexed the page, shows the HTML Googlebot received, and lets you ask for a recrawl. Google says crawling can take from several days to several months, depending on how often it thinks a page changes.

If the page shows as "Crawled, currently not indexed", nothing is blocking it: Google read it and chose not to index it yet. That's common for new sites and pages with few links pointing to them, and the fix is better content and links rather than settings.

How to see whether Google's AI uses you

The Generative AI performance report. Since August 31, 2026, Search Console has a report just for these features. It shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode by page, country, device and date. It doesn't show clicks or queries yet. Two links to your site in one AI answer count as one impression.

The Performance report. The same impressions, and the clicks, are also in the main Performance report, under the Web search type. Don't add the two reports together.

Your server logs. Googlebot identifies itself as Googlebot/2.1, but anyone can copy that. To check a visit is real, look up the address: it should resolve to a name ending in googlebot.com, google.com or googleusercontent.com, and that name should resolve back to the same address. Google also publishes its crawlers' addresses in common-crawlers.json.

What we saw in AI Mode

In September 2026 we asked Google's AI Mode and ChatGPT the same 70 questions customers ask about local services, in six US cities. AI Mode named about 6 businesses per answer, ChatGPT about 13. Of the 474 businesses AI Mode named, fewer than half (217) were named by ChatGPT in any of its answers to the same questions.

So doing well in one assistant tells you little about another. AI Mode also leaned more on Google's own pages, Reddit and Yelp than ChatGPT did. How AI assistants choose their sources has the full comparison.

Common questions

Readable isn't the same as recommended

Every indexed page is eligible, but Google picks a few to cite for each question. Which ones depends on what the page says and what the rest of the web says about you. Glowsearch tracks whether AI Mode names you when your customers ask.