Google has widened a Search Console setting that lets publishers block their content from AI Overviews, AI Mode (Google’s conversational search experience), and AI Overviews in Discover, moving the control past the .co.uk properties where it launched about a month ago and into a scattering of US, India, and Switzerland sites. The expansion turns what began as a UK-only opt-out into a live test of how much direct control publishers actually want over Google’s generative answer surfaces. That distinction matters because the toggle only touches the generative layer: Google has said it carries no weight in classic web-search ranking, so a site can withdraw from AI Overviews without risking its position in ordinary blue-link results.
Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reported the wider rollout, citing SEO practitioner Jamie Indigo, who spotted the setting on a non-UK property and posted on LinkedIn that she was surprised to see “search generative AI controls” appear despite not being British. Schwartz said the replies beneath that post filled with confirmations from outside the UK. John McAlpin described seeing the option on “a handful of properties.” Kuldeep Sharma reported it on a US-based fintech site, and Zakk Glista and Jennifer Otto both said they noticed it on US properties as well.
Schwartz verified the pattern independently. He found the setting present on one US-based .com domain he manages in Search Console, absent from other properties in the same account, and missing from his own site one night before appearing the next morning. The control sits in the Search Console Settings panel, and Google has not shared a rollout schedule or the list of eligible countries. Google separately expanded access to its AI performance reports, the dashboard that ties impression and click data to AI Overviews, to some users outside the UK around the same period, according to Schwartz’s reporting.
The tradeoff here is the real story, not the geography. Opting a site out of AI Overviews and AI Mode forfeits the traffic and impressions those surfaces generate, a meaningful number for any publisher already drawing visits from generative citations. Staying in keeps that citation exposure available but leaves the site subject to however Google’s systems choose to summarize or excerpt its content. Because the UK cohort has now run the control for roughly a month with no public data on what opting out actually costs in traffic, publishers gaining access in the US, India, and Switzerland are making the same choice with less evidence than a full case study would provide.
Any publisher with Search Console access should check the Settings panel now, since the option is not yet visible on every property, even within a single account. Sites that do opt out should track AI Overviews impressions and click-through data for a full reporting cycle before treating the decision as settled, since Google has given no indication of how quickly that data will reflect the change.
Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reported the wider rollout on July 9, 2026, drawing on confirmations from SEO practitioners including Jamie Indigo, John McAlpin, Kuldeep Sharma, Zakk Glista, and Jennifer Otto.
