Google will allow websites to opt out of AI overviews
Google has introduced a feature allowing website owners to opt out of AI-generated overviews of their content. This decision comes amid increasing pressure from publishers and regulators regarding the impact of AI on web traffic. The new control will not affect traditional search rankings but will limit exposure in AI-driven features.
- ▪Website owners can now choose whether their content appears in AI-powered search features.
- ▪Google's new toggle in Search Console allows for this opt-out option.
- ▪Opting out means content will not be used for AI responses, but will also not generate traffic from those features.
2 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 3 hours. All of the coverage we found sits in one bucket: centre. That one-sidedness is itself worth noticing.
- ▪ Google will let websites opt out of AI Overviews, but it’s trying to tempt them not to — Android Authority
Mashable files mainly under tech. We currently carry 1,188 of its stories.
Story provenance
Source · retrieval · rights · ranking — open for full record
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Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | Mashable |
| Canonical URL | https://mashable.com/tech/google-will-allow-websites-to-opt-out-of-ai-overviews |
| Publication time | Wed, 03 Jun 2026 15:26:58 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-06-03T15:47:10.777Z |
| Last seen | 2026-06-03T15:47:10.777Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | Xay_f3Zo-IRI · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Home > Tech Google will allow websites to opt out of AI overviews The company is offering publishers a new Search Console toggle and performance insights as pressure mounts over AI-driven traffic declines. By Chance Townsend Chance Townsend Editor, General Assignments Chance Townsend is the General Assignments Editor at Mashable, covering tech, video games, dating apps, digital culture, and whatever else comes his way. He has a Master's in Journalism from the University of North Texas and is a proud orange cat father. His writing has also appeared in PC Mag and Mother Jones.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Mashable.
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