Google’s answer is short: there are no special requirements. That is true, and it hides the parts that do matter. Here is what Google’s documentation says, and what follows from it.
nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex are how Google lets you limit what these features show.Google’s guide to AI features (Google Search Central, last updated December 10, 2025) makes four points worth knowing by heart:
| Topic | What Google says | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Eligibility | A page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet. “There are no additional technical requirements.” | Ordinary technical SEO is the entry ticket. |
| Special work | “You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features.” | An llms.txt or extra schema won’t get you in. |
| Query fan-out | Both features may issue “multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources” to build a response. | You can be cited for a subtopic you rank for, even if you don’t rank for the question asked. |
| Reporting | Traffic from AI features is included in Search Console’s Performance report, under the Web search type. | You can’t separate AI Overview clicks from ordinary clicks there. |
Because AI Overviews and AI Mode run several searches behind one question, a buyer asking “what’s the best CRM for a 20-person agency” may trigger searches about agency CRMs, pricing, integrations and reviews. Each is a chance to be the supporting link. That favours pages that answer one subtopic well over one page that tries to rank for the head term. A clear pricing page, an integrations page and an honest comparison can each be pulled in on their own.
Google points to its preview controls to limit what these features show from your pages: the nosnippet and max-snippet robots directives, the data-nosnippet HTML attribute and noindex. They are blunt. nosnippet removes your snippet from ordinary results too. Before you add one, check whether a CMS plugin or a past legal request already has.
Google-Extended is not one of these controls. Google says it doesn’t affect inclusion in Google Search, and AI Overviews and AI Mode are part of Search. Blocking it changes Gemini’s use of your pages, covered in our Gemini guide, not your AI Overviews.
Almost nobody blocks Googlebot itself: 75 of 4,762 top sites. When a page is missing from AI Overviews, the cause is far more often that it doesn’t rank for the searches behind the answer than that Google can’t reach it.
X-Robots-Tag headers. The structured data checker flags noindex, nosnippet and max-snippet:0 on any page.Mentioned doesn’t read Google’s results pages, so it can’t tell you whether you appear in an AI Overview. It asks the models directly: Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini on our keys. If AI Overviews are where your buyers see you, tools that read Google’s surfaces are listed in AI visibility tools compared. Our Search Console connection still helps with the last step: it shows whether the queries you care about are gaining impressions.
Google says a page needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet, with no additional technical requirements. Beyond that, rank for the related searches AI Overviews run behind a question, and make sure no nosnippet or noindex directive excludes the page.
No. Google says you don’t need new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Not separately. Google includes traffic from AI features in the overall Performance report under the Web search type, so AI Overview clicks are counted with ordinary ones.
No. Google-Extended doesn’t affect inclusion in Google Search, which AI Overviews and AI Mode are part of. It governs Gemini training and grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI.