Retrieval, evidence and AI search
Check eligibility without promising an AI citation.
Google AI feature readiness is a documented eligibility and content review. It cannot guarantee that a page will be crawled, indexed, selected, linked or displayed. Separate public requirements from the settings and observations verified for the particular property.
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Use the current requirements and record their dates.
This review is dated 23 October 2026. Google’s AI Search documentation, updated 10 July 2026, says that a site must meet Search technical requirements and be included in Search generative AI features through Search Console. The linked control help page says the setting rolled out to websites worldwide on 31 August 2026.
The older AI features documentation, updated 10 December 2025, says there are no additional technical requirements and describes AI traffic within the Web performance report. The newer documentation and its specific inclusion and reporting help pages add details. Use those newer specific documents for the setting and dedicated report rather than repeating the older wording as a complete current checklist.
A page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet to be eligible as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Eligibility is a prerequisite, not a selection promise. Google says crawling, indexing and serving are not guaranteed even when requirements and practices are followed.
Public documentation establishes that a control is documented. It does not establish this property’s verified ownership, account permission, effective inclusion choice, inherited setting, page index state or report data. Those observations remain Unknown until an authorized property review supplies evidence.
Check inclusion, inheritance and content controls separately.
The documented Search generative AI setting offers Include, Exclude and Inherit from parent. Include is the documented default for properties without a controlling parent choice; a child can inherit an explicit choice from a parent. Inspect the effective setting and its origin rather than assuming a visible child property is independent.
The setting covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover. The help page distinguishes these choices from other Search inclusion and ranking, Merchant Center and Ads choices, and model training. A change can take days to propagate, so record the saved setting and check time before interpreting a later observation.
Googlebot access concerns Search crawling. The snippet and indexing controls nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex have distinct effects and scopes. Read the exact applicable documentation before changing them; a broad noindex choice can remove a page from Search rather than merely adjusting its presentation.
Google-Extended is a different documented product token for specified Gemini and Vertex uses. It does not control Google Search inclusion or ranking according to the common crawler documentation updated 15 October 2026. Do not treat one robots token as a universal switch for every Google AI surface. This teaching page changes no setting or robots rule.
Keep the answer accessible and supported.
Use the same sound Search practices: accessible crawlable content, useful internal routes, necessary information in text, relevant media and structured data that agrees with visible content. A schema type or special AI file does not create an entitlement to appear. Google’s documentation does not recommend a universal tiny passage length or pages created for every imagined fan out query.
Explain the reader’s task completely, including definitions, evidence, constraints and a useful next step. Keep claims attributable to current sources. Original examples can clarify a method, but invented measurements or experiences must not be presented as observations.
Feature behavior can vary with the query and system. Google describes query fan out and says AI features can use different models and supporting links. An AI Overview may not appear at all. A manual search sample cannot prove every user will see the same answer or establish the system’s hidden retrieval path.
Worked example: a readiness record with honest unknowns.
This is a fictional review plan for a course explanation page, not a completed account audit. The public requirements were checked against the linked documents on 23 October 2026. No Search Console property was opened for this example, no setting was changed and no URL Inspection result was obtained.
The record marks effective inclusion, parent inheritance, page index state, snippet eligibility, Googlebot access and dedicated report availability as Unknown. The action is to ask an authorized reviewer to inspect the relevant property, retain the URL and date, and record the observed result. “Documented default Include” does not become an observed pass.
The content review can still identify a clear answer, supporting policy source, current date and visible limitations in the fictional draft. That editorial result is recorded separately from technical eligibility. It cannot close the account checks or justify a promise of citation.
If a later review finds Exclude inherited from a parent, the reviewer should record the effective choice and responsible owner. Any proposed change needs its own authorization and understanding of scope. Repeating test prompts cannot override the exclusion or diagnose the reason for a missing report by itself.
| Check | Public requirement or scope | Observed property state | Next evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search generative AI inclusion | Included through Search Console; parent inheritance can apply | Unknown | Authorized effective setting and parent choice readback |
| Index and snippet eligibility | Indexed and eligible for a Search snippet | Unknown | Dated URL Inspection and applicable directive review |
| Search crawling | Googlebot access and resource access need review | Unknown | Authorized crawl/resource checks |
| Dedicated Search AI report | Documented AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions report | Unknown | Authorized report availability, filters and date range |
| Editorial answer and evidence | Complete answer with scoped sources | Illustrative draft review only | Separate content review record; no eligibility inference |
Read the dedicated report within its documented scope.
The current Generative AI performance report for Search documents impressions for AI Overviews and AI Mode. Discover has a separate report, and Search Labs experiments are excluded. The documented dimensions are pages, countries, dates and devices, with text and multimodal Web search types. Do not invent a prompt, query, click or CTR metric for this report from another report’s feature list.
The chart normally groups data by property while page rows group data by page; a URL filter changes chart grouping. Dates use Pacific Time and recent data can be preliminary. These differences can explain totals that do not add up in a naive comparison.
The help page says a missing report commonly means insufficient impressions and also points to the inclusion setting. Report absence alone cannot distinguish no exposure, insufficient data, exclusion, account access or another observation gap. This property’s report access and data remain Unknown here.
Retain the document version, property, setting observation, report scope, date range, dimensions, filters and unresolved checks. Revisit the record when documentation, settings, page content or feature behavior changes. No checklist or score should turn an eligibility review into a guaranteed placement claim.
Sources and further reading.
The linked Google documents describe eligibility, controls, crawler roles and report definitions. The examples and decision records here are editorial teaching material, not observations from a live audit.
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