Sandbanks DigitalGoogle's October AI search changes: what they mean for your site
In the first half of October Google did two things that matter to anyone with a business website. It told site owners that a person must check anything an AI tool writes, page titles included. And it started putting more links, and a test of “official pages”, into its AI answers. Here is what actually changed, what is only a test, and the short list worth acting on.
By Elliot · Published 26 October 2026 · 9 min read
The short version
- AI answers in Google now carry more links, placed higher. That is good news for sites worth linking to.
- An “official pages” slot is being tested, with no published criteria and no countries named.
- Google now says a person must fact-check AI-written content, titles, descriptions and alt text included.
- No new penalty, and no special file or markup needed. The basics still decide who gets shown.
More links in AI answers, and a test of official pages
AI Overviews are the summaries at the top of some Google results. AI Mode is the separate chat-style search, which reached the UK in July 2025. On 15 October Google announced a set of changes to both, all pointed at the same complaint: that AI answers keep people on Google instead of sending them to websites.
Google said it has already made what it called continued and substantial increases to the links inside AI answers, and is now moving them higher up. The most interesting item for a local business is the test: a section at the very top of some answers that points to the official place to get something done, with a note on why each link is useful. Google gave no criteria for what counts as official, and named no countries for any of the changes.
| Change | Status | Countries |
|---|---|---|
| More inline links in AI answers, placed higher | Launching | Not stated |
| A section at the top of some answers highlighting official pages for a task | Test | Not stated |
| Carousels of timely articles that favour each person's Preferred Sources | Expanding | "Additional locations and languages" |
| Bigger, clickable related-article links at the end of some answers | Launching | Not stated |
| Clickable creator and publisher names on video results in AI Mode | Test | Not stated |
Google's new line on AI-written content
A quiet documentation change, easy to overstate. Here is what it does and does not say.
4
kinds of metadata Google names for human checking: titles, descriptions, structured data, alt text
Source: Google Search Central
53%
of UK adults say they often see AI summaries in search results
Source: Ofcom, December 2025
0
special files, tags or schema Google requires to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode
Source: Google Search Central
Some coverage presented this as Google newly targeting AI-written titles and alt text. That is not quite right. The page already listed those as metadata to get right. What changed is the instruction attached to them: an explicit statement that AI tools make things up, and that a person has to check everything they produce before it goes live.
| Before 1 October | The page already said AI content had to be accurate, and listed titles, meta descriptions, structured data and alt text as metadata to keep in mind. |
|---|---|
| After 1 October | It now explains that AI models predict likely words rather than look up facts, so they can invent things, and says every piece of AI-generated content, metadata included, should be fact-checked and reviewed by a person before publishing. |
| Google's stated reason | To bring its documentation into line with its search quality rater guidelines and what it has been telling developers at events. |
| What did not change | AI content is still allowed. Mass-producing low-value pages is still spam, however they were made. No new penalty or ranking signal was announced. |
Four days later Google also updated its page on helpful, people-first content, which now spells out the qualities its human raters look for: effort, originality, skill and accuracy. It says pages of AI text published with no human oversight show little to no effort, and that readers should be told how automation was used where they would wonder.
What the changes mean in practice
Read together with Google's standing advice on AI features and local results.
Being the official page matters more
Google is testing a slot for the official place to complete a task. Nobody knows its criteria yet, but a site that is plainly the business's own, with a clear contact page and the same name, address and phone everywhere, is the obvious candidate when someone asks about you.
AI answers now link out more
Google says it has substantially increased the links inside AI answers and is moving them higher. For a local business that is the route from an AI answer to your site, so the pages it would link to (services, prices, areas) need to be indexed and worth landing on.
Your Business Profile feeds AI answers
Google's own guidance names Business Profile as one of the things that helps local businesses appear in AI responses. If your opening hours, services or phone number differ between the profile and the website, an AI answer may pick the wrong one.
AI-written page titles need a human
Plenty of sites now let an AI tool write their page titles, meta descriptions and image alt text. Google now says plainly that a person should fact-check those before they go live. A wrong price or a town you do not cover, repeated in search results, is the risk.
Town-page factories are still spam
Hundreds of near-identical "[trade] in [town]" pages, AI-written or not, match Google's description of scaled content abuse. Pages for the places you serve are fine when each one says something true and specific about working there. We hold our own to a strict overlap limit.
No special file or markup gets you in
Google says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode: a page that is indexed and allowed a snippet is eligible. It does not use llms.txt files, and it says no outside tool has access to its AI systems, whatever the sales pitch.
Six checks for the next hour you spend on your site
The first three happen in Google Search Console, which is free. If nobody in the business has access to it, getting that sorted is step zero.
Check you have not opted out by accident
In Google Search Console, open Settings and find the Search generative AI control. “Include” is the default. Excluding your site removes it from AI Overviews and AI Mode within a day or two. Google says the setting does not affect ordinary rankings, so this is purely about whether you want to be in AI answers.
Read the Generative AI report, and save it
Under Performance, the Generative AI report shows how often your pages were shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device and day. It shows impressions only: no clicks, no search terms, and no split between the two features. It also keeps only a few months, so export it each month if you want a history.
Make sure your key pages can be used
Run your home, service and contact pages through URL Inspection in Search Console. Each should be indexed and free of
noindex,nosnippetor a tinymax-snippet, which would keep it out of AI answers as well as ordinary results.Have a person check every AI-drafted line
Page titles, meta descriptions, image alt text and structured data are the lines that show up in search. If an AI tool wrote them, check the facts: prices, the areas you cover, accreditations, opening hours, the phone number. Run structured data through Google's Rich Results Test after any change.
Match your Business Profile to your website
Same business name, address, phone, hours and service list in both places. When the two disagree, Google has to guess which is right, and so does any AI answer built on them. Fix the profile first, because people see it before they ever reach your site.
Ignore anyone selling inside access
Google's own guide says special AI schema, llms.txt files and splitting pages into chunks do nothing for its AI features, and that no third-party tool can see inside them. Spend the money on clearer service pages, real photos and more reviews instead.
Why nobody can tell you your AI click-through rate
Search Console counts how often your pages appear in Google's AI answers, but not how often anyone clicks them. Visits that do come from AI Mode arrive looking like ordinary Google traffic, so your analytics cannot pick them out either. One tool sees the showings and the other sees the visits, and the two cannot be divided into a click-through rate. Anyone who quotes you one has made a mistake.
The same goes for the headline statistics about AI “killing clicks”. The most careful study, by Pew Research, followed 900 US adults for one month in 2025; it is a useful signal and it is not UK data. Ofcom's UK figures measure how many people see AI summaries, not what they do next. We have not found a primary UK study of clicks, and we would rather say so than borrow an American number.
What does hold up is Google's own description of who gets shown: pages that are indexed, allowed a snippet, accurate and genuinely useful, from businesses whose details match everywhere. None of the October changes alter that. They just make the reward for getting it right a little more visible.
AI Mode and AI content questions
What did Google change in AI Mode in October 2026?
On 15 October 2026 Google said it had substantially increased the links inside AI Mode and AI Overviews and was moving them higher, began expanding carousels of timely articles that favour people's Preferred Sources, made related-article links larger, and started testing two things: a section at the top of some answers highlighting official pages, and clickable creator names on videos in AI Mode. It did not say which countries get each change.
Is AI Mode available in the UK?
Yes. Google started rolling AI Mode out in the UK on 28 July 2025, as a tab in search results and in the Google app. AI Overviews have shown in the UK since August 2024. Google's 15 October 2026 announcement did not name the UK for any of the new changes, so some may arrive here later than elsewhere.
Does Google penalise AI-generated content?
No. Google judges content on quality, not on how it was made, and its 1 October 2026 update did not add a penalty. What it did add is an explicit instruction that AI-generated content, including page titles, meta descriptions, structured data and image alt text, should be fact-checked by a person before publishing. Mass-producing low-value pages is still spam whether AI wrote them or not.
How do I see if my site appears in AI Overviews?
Open Google Search Console, go to Performance, then the Generative AI report. Since 31 August 2026 it is available to every site. It shows impressions only, broken down by page, country, device and day, with no search terms, no clicks and no split between AI Overviews and AI Mode. Small sites with very few AI impressions may not see the report at all.
Can I stop Google using my site in AI answers?
Yes. Search Console's Search generative AI setting, available worldwide since 31 August 2026, lets you exclude a site from AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI features in Discover, usually within one to two days. Google says excluding is not a ranking signal for normal results. For most small businesses it is the wrong move, because AI answers are a route to new customers.
Do I need an llms.txt file or special schema for AI search?
Not for Google. Its optimisation guide says Google Search does not use llms.txt, that structured data is not required for AI features, and that there are no extra requirements beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet. We publish an llms.txt on this site for other AI assistants that may read it, but it does nothing for Google.
How many people in the UK see AI Overviews?
Ofcom's Online Nation report of December 2025 found 53% of UK adults say they often see AI summaries in search results. That is a survey of what people report, not a measure of clicks. We have not found a primary UK study of how AI answers affect clicks; the widely quoted Pew Research figures come from a small US panel in March 2025.
Sources & further reading
The guidance on this page is grounded in primary sources. Follow the links to read them in full.
- Google: More ways to connect with the web from Search
Google's announcement of 15 October 2026: more inline links, the official pages test, Preferred Sources carousels.
- Google Search Central: Using generative AI content
The guidance updated on 1 October 2026, including the human fact-check of titles, descriptions, structured data and alt text.
- Google Search Central: Documentation updates
The changelog entry of 1 October 2026 and Google's stated reason for the change.
- Google Search Central: Creating helpful, people-first content
Updated 5 October 2026: effort, originality, skill and accuracy, and disclosing automation.
- Google Search Central: Spam policies
Scaled content abuse, which covers mass-produced low-value pages however they were made.
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
No extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and the snippet controls that apply.
- Google Search Central: Optimising for generative AI features
Google's own guide: llms.txt not used, structured data not required, Business Profile named for local answers.
- Search Console Help: Generative AI performance report
What the report counts: impressions by page, country, device and day, with AI Overviews and AI Mode combined.
- Search Console Help: Search generative AI control
How to include or exclude a site from Google's AI features, and what excluding does not affect.
- Google UK: Introducing AI Mode in the UK
AI Mode's UK launch on 28 July 2025.
- Ofcom: How the UK goes online in 2025
The UK regulator's December 2025 findings on how many adults see AI summaries in search.
- Pew Research Center: AI summaries and clicks (US)
The most careful click study so far, from a panel of 900 US adults in March 2025. Not UK data.