1/3rd of publishers say they will block Google Search AI-generative features like AI Overviews

Google announced yesterday that it is exploring ways for sites to opt out of Google using their content for its AI-generative search features, such as AI Mode and AI Overviews. I asked the SEO community on X if they would opt out of these Google Search AI-generative features or not.

The results. Of the over 350 responses that took the poll yesterday, most said they would not opt out. However, about 1/3 of respondents said they would block or opt out of these features. Here is the breakdown:

Question: Would you block Google from using your content for AI Overviews and AI Mode?

• 33.2% – Yes, I’d block Google
• 41.9% – No, I wouldn’t block
• 24.9% – I am not sure yet.

Here is the actual poll:

How to opt out. We don’t know. Google only said it is “exploring” ways to handle this but has not provided any mechanism for this. So we don’t know how hard or easy it would be to opt out. The easier it is, the more likely sites will opt out; the harder, the less likely.

Why we care. The true number of sites that might opt out of AI Mode or AI Overviews won’t be known until the mechanism is out to handle this. And trust me, there will be many reports on how many sites are opting out.

Like recently, “Some 79% of almost 100 top news websites in the UK and US are blocking at least one crawler used for AI training out of OpenAI’s GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Anthropic-ai, CCBot, Applebot-Extended and Google-Extended,” reported The Press Gazette.

My recommendation; once it is out, it is something you will want to test and see the results of opting out or opting in.