Does blocking Google-Extended remove my site from AI Overviews?

No. Google says Google-Extended does not affect a site's inclusion in Google Search, and AI Overviews are part of Google Search. Google-Extended manages whether your content is used to train Gemini models and for grounding in the Gemini app and Vertex AI.

Do I need special schema or an llms.txt file for AI Overviews?

No. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, no special schema.org structured data to add, and no need for AI text files. Any structured data you do use should match the visible text on the page.

What is the difference between Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode?

AI Overviews appear on ordinary Google results pages when Google decides generative AI will help. AI Mode is a separate search experience that splits a question into subtopics and searches each one. The Gemini app is Google's standalone assistant, which can ground its answers in content from the Google Search index.

Can I see AI Overview traffic in Search Console?

Only as part of your overall numbers. Google includes traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode in the Search Console Performance report under the Web search type, together with the rest of your web search traffic.

How do I stop Google showing my content in AI Overviews?

Use snippet controls such as nosnippet, data-nosnippet or max-snippet to limit what Google can show, or noindex to remove a page from Google Search entirely. Google says more restrictive settings limit how your content appears in its AI features. Blocking Google-Extended will not do it.

Gemini SEO: Get Cited in Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode

Gemini SEO is the work of getting your pages used as sources by Google's AI: AI Overviews and AI Mode inside Google Search, and the separate Gemini app. For the two Search features, Google says ordinary SEO is what counts: a page must be "indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet", and there is no special schema or AI text file to add (Google Search Central).

The Gemini app works differently, and so does the robots.txt token most people associate with it. This guide sets out which rules apply to which surface, then what to change.

Three Google AI surfaces, three sets of rules

	AI Overviews	AI Mode	Gemini app
Where it appears	On an ordinary Google results page	A separate AI search experience in Google	gemini.google.com and the Gemini mobile apps
When it appears	When Google decides generative AI will help	When the user chooses it	When the user opens it
Where sources come from	The Google Search index	The Google Search index, through query fan-out	Content from the Google Search index at prompt time
What controls your inclusion	Googlebot, indexing and snippet controls	The same as AI Overviews	Indexing, plus the Google-Extended token

The details behind that table come from Google's own pages. AI Overviews show up "when our systems determine that generative AI can be especially helpful", and users cannot switch them off, though a Web filter shows text links only (Google Search Help). AI Mode "expands what AI Overviews can do with more advanced reasoning" and works by "dividing your question into subtopics and searching for each one simultaneously across multiple data sources" (Google Search Help). The Gemini app shows a Sources button when it provides links; if there is no button, it gave no links for that response (Gemini Apps Help).

Google-Extended does not control AI Overviews

Google-Extended is a robots.txt token, not a separate crawler. Google says it lets publishers manage whether content Google crawls is used to train future Gemini models and for grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI, and that it "does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal in Google Search" (Google crawler documentation). It has no user agent string of its own; Google's existing crawlers do the fetching.

So match the setting to the goal:

What you want	What to set
Appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode	Allow Googlebot, get the page indexed, and avoid restrictive snippet controls
Limit how much of a page Google's AI features show	`nosnippet`, `data-nosnippet` or `max-snippet`; Google says more restrictive settings "will limit how your content is featured" in its AI experiences (Google Search Central blog)
Keep a page out of Google Search, AI features included	`noindex`, which removes it from ordinary results too
Keep content out of Gemini model training and Gemini app grounding	A `Google-Extended` group in robots.txt with `Disallow: /`

The last row has a cost. Grounding is how the Gemini app pulls in content from the Search index when it answers, and Google lists grounding in Gemini Apps among the uses Google-Extended controls. Blocking it trades away the chance to be a source in the Gemini app. Our AI crawler checker shows what your robots.txt currently says to Googlebot and Google-Extended.

What Google says helps

Google's guidance for AI features lists the same practices it recommends for Search (Google Search Central):

allow crawling in robots.txt and in any CDN or hosting setup;
make content findable through internal links;
provide a good page experience;
make important content available in textual form;
support text with high-quality images and videos where they help;
make sure structured data matches the visible text on the page;
keep Merchant Center and Business Profile information up to date.

John Mueller's May 2025 post on Google's AI experiences adds the content side: "focus on making unique, non-commodity content" that visitors will find helpful (Google Search Central blog). For a business site that means the facts only you have: real prices and limits, your own test results, and specific answers to the questions customers ask before they buy.

Write for query fan-out

Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode may issue "multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources", which lets them show "a wider and more diverse set of helpful links" than classic results (Google Search Central). A question such as "best CRM for a small law firm" can fan out into searches about pricing, conflict checks, client intake and data security.

Take each important buyer question and list the sub-questions behind it. Then check whether one of your pages answers each sub-question in its first sentences, under a heading that matches how people ask it. The gaps are your content plan. Our answer engine optimization guide shows how to write a passage that can be lifted out and quoted.

Get onto the pages Google's AI already cites

Your own page is not the only route into an Overview. In Profound's analysis of 680 million citations from August 2024 to June 2025, Reddit was the most-cited source in Google AI Overviews, at 2.2% of citations, with YouTube next. Search your key questions, note the domains each Overview cites, and work on being represented accurately there: genuine community answers, honest customer reviews and current listings on the roundups that rank. Local and retail businesses should start with the Business Profile and Merchant Center data Google points to.

How to measure Gemini and AI Overview visibility

Search Console mixes AI traffic in. Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic is "included in the overall search traffic" and reported in the Performance report under the Web search type (Google Search Central).
Check whether an Overview appears at all. Google shows one only when it decides generative AI will help, so search each key query more than once, and on mobile if your buyers search on phones, before drawing conclusions.
For the Gemini app, ask your buyer questions and open the Sources panel to see which pages it linked.
Watch referral visits from gemini.google.com in your analytics. Google says clicks from results pages with AI Overviews are "higher quality", meaning people are more likely to spend more time on the site (Google Search Central). That is Google's claim, so check engagement for those visits in your own data.

Where XeoRank fits

The free AI visibility check asks Gemini three buyer questions about your site without an account. In the product, XeoRank asks ChatGPT, Gemini (grounded in Google Search) and Perplexity your buyer questions, each reported as its own engine next to an overall citation rate. Starter is $19 a month and Pro is $49 a month; see pricing for what each plan includes. The site crawler checks some of the Search basics Google points to: canonicals that conflict (a page's own URL spelled differently, many pages collapsed onto one, or a sitemap URL declaring another canonical), groups of pages whose content is fetched client-side so the HTML carries only the template, and errors in the structured data a page already has. GA4 reporting breaks out referral traffic from Gemini and other AI assistants against the previous period.

What it does not do: it does not report AI Overview or AI Mode citations in the dashboard or through the MCP server, it cannot decide whether Google shows an Overview for a query, and it cannot split AI Overview clicks out of Search Console data, because Google does not report them separately. For the steps that apply to every engine, read how to get cited by AI.

Gemini SEO: how to appear in Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode