Earlier this month, Google announced new ways to control how Google's general search AI features (like AI Mode and AI Overviews) can use your content and link to your content. Well, Google has released a super detailed help document explaining how it all works, including how to access it, the controls, what it does, the time it takes, the property inheritance, and how to submit feedback.
I don't believe this document was available when Google announced the feature at the beginning of this month, but it is now available. I spotted this via Glenn Gabe who posted about it on X saying, "If you haven't reviewed Google's support documentation for blocking AI Search, there's a lot of info there. And that includes how child properties will inherit the settings from parent properties, but that can be overridden at the child property level."
The document explains that this control went into effect June 17, 2026 and impacts AI Overviews, AI Mode and Generative AI features in Google Discover. If your site supports it, and right now, only UK sites support it, you should be able to access it over here.
There are three options for controls:
- Include my site's links and content in Search generative AI features: Your site's content can appear in Search generative AI features, including showing up as links and helping to ground AI responses in these features. Your site can receive impressions and traffic from these features. This is the default control for all properties.
- Exclude my site's links and content from Search generative AI features: Your site's content is prevented from being visible to users in Search generative AI features, including being linked to within these features and helping with grounding AI responses in these features. You won't receive any traffic or impressions from these features. Learn more about what excluding your site means.
- Inherit control from parent: Your property is following the Search generative AI control value of its parent property. Any changes made at the parent level will automatically apply to your property too. You can override this and manually configure the control for your property at any time. This is the default if your property has a parent property.
If you exclude your site, Google said "to your site and your site's content won't appear in Search generative AI features." Google added, "this control isn't used as a ranking or inclusion signal affecting other parts of Search." Content will be excluded within 1-2 days after the control goes live, but some content may take longer to be excluded due to caching and propagation across Google systems, Google added.
The inheritance section is super details, and you should read through it carefully. By default, a property inherits its Search generative AI control from its closest parent that has changed its control to stop inheriting. For a property in which none of its parents manually-configured their control to stop inheriting, the property is set to inherit the control of its top-level domain property.
It is worth reading through this new help document even if you don't plan on using it.
Here is a screenshot of this control in Search Console:
Forum discussion at X.
