Post by @inthehands@hachyderm.io

TIL that if you register your site with Google Search Console, you can switch off a “Search generative AI” setting to tell Google not to include your site’s content in its AI overviews.

I have serious doubts about whether this •actually• excludes the site. (Do they untrain their LLM?! Will they even block your site when retraining? I severely doubt it.)

However, I’m quite sure that it sends a signal to some sad, dark business analytics corner of Google. And it’s a signal I want to send.

2 media files

Screenshot of an email:

Warning: Content from innig.net won't appear in Search generative AI features
Google has confirmed that an owner of property innig.net, Paul Cantrell, has updated the Search generative AI control to:
Exclude my site's links and content from Search generative AI features
What this means:
Content from innig.net is excluded from Search generative AI features. This means your site won't be visible to users in Search generative AI features, including being linked to within these features and helping with grounding AI responses in these features. Learn more about what excluding your site means.
Your site will no longer receive any traffic or impressions from Search generative AI features.
This setting applies to all pages under innig.net. Child properties inherit this setting by default, but their owners can choose to override it.
You can review or revert this setting in Search Console at any time. Keep in mind that changes take time to reflect in Search.
View Search generative AI control — Screenshot of an email: Warning: Content from innig.net won't appear in Search generative AI features Google has confirmed that an owner of property innig.net, Paul Cantrell, has updated the Search generative AI control to: Exclude my site's links and content from Search generative AI features What this means: Content from innig.net is excluded from Search generative AI features. This means your site won't be visible to users in Search generative AI features, including being linked to within these features and helping with grounding AI responses in these features. Learn more about what excluding your site means. Your site will no longer receive any traffic or impressions from Search generative AI features. This setting applies to all pages under innig.net. Child properties inherit this setting by default, but their owners can choose to override it. You can review or revert this setting in Search Console at any time. Keep in mind that changes take time to reflect in Search. View Search generative AI control

Under the heading “AI controls,” the setting “Search generative AI”
is set to “Exclude” — Under the heading “AI controls,” the setting “Search generative AI” is set to “Exclude”

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Sheldon

@sysop408@sfba.social 10 hr. ago

@inthehands I’m conflicted about the conventional wisdom on Search AI Overview for publishers and I think how it impacts you may depend on what kind of content you publish.

For encyclopedias, manuals, and technical articles, the AI overviews may be more damaging than good.

For a lot of other stuff… not sure if it’s a paradigm shift. When I search for event information where I’m the only authoritative source. The entire AI overview all referenced me, but I got inline links plus the top result link.

What got cut out were the handful or sometimes dozens of content farm scraper sites that were already using my own content to grab my traffic.

There are times I read the AI overview and feel bad for whomever did the real work, but there are also times when I found the better site via the AI overview.

I do believe the overviews are universally bad for visit counts, but I’m less worried about quality visits (for my stuff).