Google Search Console updates and changes

Google expanded its list of content exclusion methods to seven, adding Search Console AI controls alongside existing snippet and indexing rules.

Affects: Control what you share with Google Search documentation, Search generative AI control, robots meta tag, data-nosnippet · Effective: October 21, 2026

Google is repositioning inline links higher in AI Overviews and expanding carousels for Preferred Sources.

Affects: Inline links in AI Overviews, Inline links in AI Mode, Preferred Sources carousels, Search profile links on AI Mode video results

Google is compensating roughly 100 publishers at approximately 0.1% of their advertising revenue through its AI contribution pilot.

Affects: AI contribution pilot, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini app

Google Search Console now includes an image filter to help merchants monitor traffic and conversions driven by product image searches.

Affects: Multimodal filter, Image search performance data

Google deployed its fourth spam update of 2026 and expanded Search Console with multimodal search filters and new Page Experience metrics.

Affects: spam update, multimodal search filters, Page Experience CrUX ad metrics, Local Service Ads

Google's AI Overview links lead either to external websites or to its own AI Mode feature, and Search Console tracks these two traffic sources separately.

Affects: AI Overviews, AI Mode, inline links · Effective: Testing began September 2026; some features rolled out Janua

Google added a multimodal filter to Search Console that reveals which pages drive traffic from image-based searches.

Affects: Multimodal search type filter, Performance report Web search type, Generative AI performance report · Effective: Rollout began on the day of the announcement

Google is rolling out a new multimodal search type filter in Search Console's performance report to help SEOs segment traffic by search modality.

Affects: Multimodal search type filter, Performance report, Generative AI features report · Effective: Sep 24, 2026

Google has released multimodal search performance reporting in Search Console so publishers can track how their content appears in visual and multimodal search experiences.

Affects: web multimodal search performance report

Google is paying select publishers for content featured in AI Overviews through a new pilot program accessed via Search Console, though citations and links within AI answers don't trigger payment.

Affects: AI contribution pilot, generative AI performance report

Google is piloting a Search Console program to pay publishers whose content is used in Gemini, AI Overviews, and AI Mode results.

Affects: AI contribution pilot, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini app

Google is testing a pilot program that pays publishers when their content appears in AI Overviews and other generative search features.

Affects: AI contribution pilot, AI Overviews, AI Mode

Google has finished rolling out AI performance reports to all Search Console users worldwide, enabling tracking of AI Overview and AI Mode impressions.

Affects: AI Overviews impressions report, AI Mode impressions report, Discover generative AI impressions report, Search generative AI opt-out control · Effective: As of August 31, 2026

Google is replacing manual penalties for site reputation abuse in the European Economic Area with a system that allows affected site sections to rank independently.

Affects: Site reputation abuse manual action policy, Manual actions report, Reconsideration requests · Effective: August 30

Google will suspend enforcement of its site reputation abuse manual actions in the European Economic Area starting August 30, 2026, per an EU Commission mandate.

Affects: Site reputation abuse policy manual actions, Parasite SEO enforcement · Effective: August 30, 2026

Google has rolled out developing-topic link carousels to AI Mode, giving timely articles prominent placement alongside AI-generated responses.

Affects: Developing-topic link carousels, AI Mode · Effective: Tuesday, August 25, 2026 (announcement date)

Google Search Console now lets brands verify social and video accounts to track search clicks, impressions, and queries—starting immediately with no historical backfill.

Affects: Platform properties, Social and video account search performance data · Effective: July 7

Google Search Console's new Platform properties feature lets SEO teams see exactly how YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok content ranks in Google Search—often unexpectedly well.

Affects: Platform properties · Effective: July 7

Google has formally removed the requirement to block internal search results from its guidelines, but John Mueller advises continuing the practice to avoid server load and quality issues.

Affects: Internal search results pages blocking guidance

Google has made Platform Properties available worldwide, letting creators track how their social and video content performs across Google's discovery surfaces.

Affects: Platform properties