How to Read the Google Discover Generative AI Report in 2026: It Counts Impressions, Not Clicks
Publisher in a Box editorial teamUpdated
Key takeaways
The Discover generative AI report describes one metric, impressions, so it shows how often your link appeared and leaves out whether anyone tapped it.
Google confirmed that disabled source taps were a bug in an experiment, and Search Console's report describes no metric that would have revealed it.
Pair the report with the standard Discover report by canonical URL, then watch AI share beside clicks and CTR on completed weeks.
The Search generative AI control is one switch for AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover, so keep the default unless your own evidence argues otherwise.
The Google Discover Audit reads your own Search Console data and returns a prioritized plan.
Table of Contents
Late last month Google confirmed that a Discover experiment had stopped readers from tapping the sources under some AI summaries. Rajan Patel, Google's VP of Engineering for Search, called it "a bug in a Discover experiment" and said it had been turned off, which closed the immediate problem and left a harder question behind it.
Could a publisher have seen that bug in its own data? Going by Google's documentation, no, because the Search Console report built for Discover's AI features describes one metric, impressions. Your link can appear in an AI summary while the path from that summary to your site is broken, and the number in the report would have no way to show it.
This guide explains what the report counts, what it leaves out, and how we would pair it with the standard Discover report. The rules come from Google's help pages, read on November 2, 2026, and we mark where their words stop and our reading begins.
What does the Discover generative AI report show?
Google's help page says the report "shows important data about how your site performs on generative AI features in Google Discover." Google announced the reports on June 3, 2026, starting with a subset of websites, and the help page now says the insights reached all websites worldwide as of August 31, 2026.
You can open the report directly if you have a verified property. If it is missing, Google gives two reasons: the rollout has not reached you, or your site has not received enough impressions in these features. Google adds that you may have excluded your site through the Search generative AI control, so check that setting too.
The report groups data three ways:
Pages: the canonical URL "that served as the source of the information shown to the user," which may differ from the page where a reader lands.
Countries: where the content was viewed.
Dates: days, weeks or months, all in Pacific Time.
What counts as an impression, and what is missing?
Google defines the metric this way: "Impressions are how many links to your site that a user saw in generative AI features in Discover." The link must be scrolled into view, and Google counts only one impression per result per session, so a reader who scrolls back does not add a second one.
The missing pieces matter more than the definition. The help page lists no clicks, no click-through rate and no position, so you can learn how often a link appeared without learning whether anyone used it. Search Engine Journal reached the same reading in its report on the bug.
Google has left a door open, because its June announcement mentioned "adding additional metrics over time," so check the report again each quarter.
1 metric
The generative AI report for Discover describes impressions only. Clicks and CTR live in the standard Discover report, which does not separate AI features.
Source: Google Search Console Help, read November 2, 2026
What the source tap bug tells you about the report
On October 23, Discover researcher Damien Andell reported a flag called "disable_aio_sources_button_tap." He wrote that tapping the sources at the bottom of an AI summary had previously opened a small feed of articles from those sources, and that the flag stopped it. Patel's reply followed, and Search Engine Journal reported it on October 27.
Google did not say what the experiment was testing, how long it ran or how many people saw the disabled taps. Andell then reported a replacement experiment called "aio tap falls through to hero," and his post did not explain how it works or where it runs, so we would not guess at its effect on your traffic.
Search Engine Journal suggests a check worth copying, which is to tap the sources on an AI summary card in your own feed and see whether the article feed opens. It is the only test in this guide that looks at the reader's path instead of a count.
An impression tells you Google showed your link. It cannot tell you whether the reader had a working way to reach it.
How much of the feed are AI summaries?
Google does not publish that figure, so the best public number comes from a vendor. Marfeel, which sells Discover monitoring, reported in December 2025 that AI summaries made up 51 percent of Discover entries across the US, Brazil and Mexico. Treat it as a directional reading, because it is close to a year old and we have not seen it independently replicated.
The more useful finding is where those summaries sit, because they cluster deep in the feed, where fewer people scroll.
AI summaries as a share of US Google Discover entries, by feed position
percent of entries
Source: Marfeel Discover Monitoring, December 2025. One vendor's measurement, not a Google figure.
Marfeel also found that in the US, the primary one-tap action on an AI summary played a YouTube video inline in 77 percent of cases and went to a publisher link in 23 percent. That is why we read a rising AI impression count as visibility rather than as traffic.
How do you pair the two reports?
The AI report becomes useful once you set it beside the standard Discover report, which does carry clicks and CTR. Google's June post says the generative AI data "is included in the overall performance report," so our reading is that your Discover impression totals already contain these AI impressions. Google does not say how AI clicks are treated, and in the help pages we read, nothing labels a click as coming from an AI feature.
Here is the routine we would run each week:
1. Export both reports for the same completed week. Google's weeks run Sunday to Saturday, and today's data, sometimes yesterday's too, is preliminary, so leave out the newest days. 2. Match rows by page. Both reports credit the canonical URL, so the columns line up. 3. Add one column, AI share. Divide a page's AI impressions by its Discover impressions. Treat the result as a signal rather than a precise share, because Google does not document the overlap between the two counts. 4. Compare with the previous period. Read clicks and CTR beside the AI share, page by page.
Take a made-up page to show the arithmetic. It has 200,000 Discover impressions, 6,000 clicks and 40,000 AI impressions, so its CTR is 3 percent and its AI share is 20 percent. A month later it has the same 200,000 impressions, 4,500 clicks and 90,000 AI impressions, so CTR is 2.25 percent and AI share is 45 percent. Impressions alone would have called that page stable, while the paired view points to a page that may be seen more often in places that send fewer readers.
Three cautions apply before you trust the sheet. Tables stop at 1,000 rows, so a large site can lose pages. Rows below an impression threshold do not appear, although they still count in the totals. Most important, values shown as ~ or - in the report become zeros in the download, so a zero in your export may mean "not available" rather than none. Our guide to reading Search Console when ranking no longer means traffic applies the same discipline to search data.
What should each pattern make you do?
Google has not published a playbook for this, so the table below is our reading, and each row is a place to start.
What you see
What it may mean
What we would do
AI impressions up, clicks steady
Extra visibility without obvious cost
Leave the page alone, and note which subjects earn AI links
AI impressions up, clicks down, Discover impressions flat
Readers may be stopping at the summary
Tap through a live card yourself, then strengthen what a summary cannot carry
AI impressions flat, Discover impressions down
The feed is showing you less, and AI features may not be the cause
Check the Search Status Dashboard, then your topics, titles and images
No report, or zeros everywhere
Below the threshold, or excluded by your setting
Check Settings, then Search generative AI, before you read anything into it
Separate the causes before you act, because Discover moves for many reasons. Google says Discover traffic "is less predictable or dependable when compared to keyword-driven search visits," and names changing interests, content types and Search updates as reasons. When we read the Search Status Dashboard on November 2, the newest ranking entry was the September 2026 spam update, so a drop since it finished has no announced update on that list to explain it, though the list only shows what Google chooses to post. Our guide to recovering from a Discover traffic drop covers the next steps, and our overview of what is live and being tested in Discover gives the wider picture.
Should you exclude your site from these AI features?
Search Console now has a Search generative AI control, found under Settings, and it is broader than Discover.
It is one switch for three surfaces. The control covers AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover, and the page lists no Discover-only option.
Exclusion removes your links and your grounding. Google says "You won't receive any traffic or impressions from these features," and that content from other sites "may appear similar to yours."
It is not a ranking penalty. Google says the control "isn't used as a ranking or inclusion signal affecting other parts of Search."
It does not address AI training. Google points to Google-Extended for that, so the two decisions are separate.
Our recommendation is to keep the default unless you have evidence from your own site, because the report cannot show what you would give up in Discover, and the same switch would also remove you from AI Overviews and AI Mode. If you want a real test, Google lets the owner of a child property, such as one URL prefix, set its own control, so one section of a site can exclude while the rest stays in. That is also where generative engine optimization (GEO), often referred to as AI search optimization, meets your Discover work, because the same pages can earn citations on all three surfaces.
What can you do about clicks you cannot measure?
Work on what stays useful whichever way the AI layer moves. Google's Discover guidance still asks for titles that capture the essence of the content, no clickbait, timely work with unique insights, and large images at least 1200 pixels wide. Our checklist of what a Google Discover audit checks shows how to test those on your own pages.
Then reduce how much of your audience depends on one card. Chartbeat's 2026 Publisher Playbook, as reported by Search Engine Journal, showed Discover's year-over-year decline widening from 6.6 percent to 34.3 percent across a network that skews toward news and media, although the report does not say whether that measures pageviews or share of pageviews. An email sign-up inside the article and the Preferred Sources button both give a reader a way back that does not depend on the next feed test.
Where to go from here
If you want a clear read on which of your pages are exposed and what to fix first, the Google Discover Audit reviews your Search Console and your site, then gives you written findings and a prioritized plan. Google Discover Consulting teaches our playbook to your team, and if you want the whole pipeline run for you, Google Discover Turnkey Management has no upfront cost and works on a revenue share.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Discover generative AI report show clicks?
The help page lists no clicks, CTR or position. It describes impressions, grouped by page, country and date. Clicks and CTR appear in the standard Discover performance report, which does not separate AI features.
Why can't I see the generative AI report in Search Console?
Google gives two reasons: the rollout has not reached your property, or your site has not received enough impressions in these features. You may also have excluded your site through the Search generative AI control under Settings.
Was the disabled source tap in Discover a permanent change?
Google called it "a bug in a Discover experiment" and said the experiment was turned off. Researcher Damien Andell then reported a replacement experiment, and how it behaves has not been explained.
Will excluding my site from AI features hurt my rankings?
Google says the control "isn't used as a ranking or inclusion signal affecting other parts of Search." You would still lose any traffic and impressions from AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover's AI features, because one control covers all three.
Can I opt out of AI features in Discover only?
The control page lists no Discover-only choice. It applies to AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover together, although a child property can set its own value, which lets you test one section of a site.
Sources
Google Search Console Help, Generative AI performance report (Discover), read November 2, 2026, support.google.com
Google Search Console Help, Performance report (Discover), read November 2, 2026, support.google.com
Google Search Console Help, Search generative AI control, read November 2, 2026, support.google.com
Google Search Central Blog, Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console, June 3, 2026, developers.google.com
Google Search Central, Discover and your website, last updated March 9, 2026, developers.google.com
Google Search Status Dashboard, Ranking history, read November 2, 2026, status.search.google.com
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