John Shehata, CEO of NewzDash, recovered thing successful July that a batch of publishers threatening to artifact Google’s AI don’t recognize is already happening underneath them. Google has started folding full Top Stories carousels straight wrong AI Overviews, and the robots.txt directive astir publishers scope for first does thing to extremity it.
Shehata posted connected LinkedIn that astir 1 successful six U.S. trending news queries now spot Top Stories wrong AI Overviews, and followed it pinch a afloat information breakdown connected the NewzDash SEO for News blog.
Screenshot from LinkedIn, July 2026Google Has Run This Play Before
The taxable he is describing is not caller successful kind, but it is caller successful mechanism. In 2006, John and I said connected a sheet astir “Vertical Creep Into Regular Search Results” astatine the Search Engine Strategies New York conference. We discussed really Google was softly pulling what appeared successful Google News into its main web results earlier Universal Search formally arrived. Danny Sullivan called that May 2007 rollout the astir extremist alteration Google had ever shipped to its results, blending video, images, books, and news into a azygous classed database alternatively of 10 bluish links. Google’s ain announcement framed it the aforesaid way, describing a displacement toward 1 integrated group of results alternatively than abstracted verticals users had to hunt done individually.
Nineteen years later, Google is doing it again. This clip the destination isn’t a blended results page. It’s an AI-generated answer.
What NewzDash’s Data Shows
According to NewzDash’s tracking, among trending news queries wherever Google displays Top Stories astatine all, 15.5% successful the U.S. and 17.46% successful the UK now show that carousel embedded wrong the AI Overview alternatively than arsenic its ain standalone module beneath it. Entertainment queries lead some countries, clearing 35% successful the U.S. and 31.5% successful the UK. World News hits astir 32% successful the U.S. Health and Science queries hardly register. Shehata’s information besides shows the 2 placements are mutually exclusive. When Top Stories lives wrong the AI Overview, Google is not besides moving a abstracted carousel further down the page for the aforesaid query.
That favoritism matters much than it sounds for illustration it should, because it reframes the full opt-out speech publishers person been having since AI Overviews launched.
Google-Extended Is Not An AI Overviews Opt-Out
Most publishers who want retired constituent their robots.txt astatine Google-Extended and see the matter settled. It isn’t. Google’s ain crawler archiving states plainly that Google-Extended governs specified AI training and grounding uses, things for illustration feeding early Gemini models aliases grounding definite Vertex AI responses, and explicitly does not impact a site’s inclusion successful Google Search aliases usability arsenic a ranking signal. Blocking it does not region a patient from AI Overviews, AI Mode, modular Top Stories, aliases Top Stories embedded wrong an AI Overview. Shehata is correct to support hammering connected this, because the disorder is not a fringe misunderstanding. It’s the default presumption crossed the industry.
The Control That Reaches AI Overviews Is A Different One Entirely
Google began testing a generative AI removal wrong Search Console successful June, presently constricted to a subset of UK tract owners. It lets an eligible patient exclude their links and contented from AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative Discover features specifically, without rubbing their eligibility for accepted Search. Google’s support archiving says an excluded site’s contented won’t look successful those features and won’t moreover beryllium utilized arsenic an input for generating a response. Choose that mounting and, by Shehata’s reading, you almost surely suffer your spot successful the embedded Top Stories carousel too, since it’s conscionable a postulation of patient links riding wrong 1 of the covered surfaces.
Google has not confirmed what happens adjacent astatine the layout level. Would the AI Overview support showing an embedded carousel built from the publishers who remained opted in? Would Google autumn backmost to a standalone Top Stories module instead? Nobody extracurricular Mountain View knows yet, and Shehata is observant to explanation this a high-confidence mentation alternatively than a documented outcome. That benignant of restraint is rarer than it should beryllium successful AI SEO commentary correct now, and it’s a ample portion of why I spot his information complete the louder takes circulating connected the aforesaid topic.
The Bigger Story Is Trust
I deliberation the bigger communicative present is not the mechanics of Google-Extended versus the Search Console control, moreover though publishers genuinely request to understand that quality earlier they touch a setting. The bigger communicative is that AI Overviews’ cardinal problem has ever been trust, not visibility. Users don’t yet person a reliable measurement to cognize whether an AI-generated reply is drafting connected thing a reliable newsroom really reported aliases synthesizing thing thinner. Pulling Top Stories, pinch its named publishers, existent bylines, and nonstop links, into the assemblage of the AI Overview alternatively of stacking it beneath a wall of generated matter is simply a genuine, if incomplete, reply to that problem. I’ve watched Google reshuffle wherever news lives successful its results since the “vertical creep” days of 2006. This is the first move successful the AI Overview era that looks aimed astatine rebuilding spot alternatively than conscionable reducing clicks to the unfastened web.
Although this is my considered opinion, it comes pinch a caveat. A measurement successful the correct guidance is not the aforesaid arsenic a vanished solution, and Google’s refusal to archive what happens to publishers who opt retired is precisely the benignant of ambiguity that erodes the spot this move is expected to build.
3 Things To Do This Week
For SEO practitioners managing news clients aliases in-house newsroom sites, 3 things are worthy doing this week alternatively than waiting for Google to explain the layout question.
First, abstracted your controls earlier you touch either one. Audit whether your tract presently blocks Google-Extended, uses the caller Search Console generative AI exclusion, aliases neither, and archive which surfaces each 1 really governs. Treating them arsenic interchangeable is really a tract accidentally forfeits AI Overview visibility while believing it only opted retired of training data.
Second, if you person entree to the Search Console exclusion, trial it connected a URL-prefix spot aliases a azygous conception earlier applying it sitewide. Google’s power supports inheritance betwixt genitor and kid properties, which intends a news patient tin proceedings the removal on, say, an sentiment vertical and watch what happens to that section’s Top Stories eligibility earlier deciding whether the tradeoff is worthy it domain-wide.
Third, commencement pulling Google’s generative AI capacity reports successful Search Console now, and brace them pinch a instrumentality for illustration NewzDash that tracks really often your URLs aboveground wrong Top Stories carousels versus embedded AI Overview placements. You cannot make an informed opt-out determination without a baseline for really overmuch visibility is really astatine stake, and that baseline needs to beryllium earlier you flip the setting, not after.
Twenty years ago, “vertical creep” meant publishers had to fig retired really a blended results page would dainty their headlines. Today, it intends figuring retired really a generated reply treats them instead. The system changed, but the request for publishers to understand precisely what they’re opting into, and retired of, did not. John Shehata is doing the unglamorous activity of documenting that displacement successful existent time, and until Google says otherwise, his information is the closest point the manufacture has to crushed truth.
More Resources:
- Google Gives Sites AI Search Opt-Out, But Not The Data To Use It
- Preferred Sources & AI Mode Are Creating Filter Bubbles – A New Discovery Problem
- Google Shows How To Get More Traffic From Top Stories Feature
Featured Image: PeopleImages/Shutterstock
English (US) · 
Indonesian (ID) ·