Google Search Gen AI Reports, Search Profiles & more (Q2 ‘26)

Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of Google Search News. I hope life is treating you reasonably well wherever you are. >> [music] >> My name is John Mueller. I'm your host today here from Google Switzerland. Today we have news about AI and search documentation, AI search reporting and AI controls. And of course lots of cool new things all around Google Search. It hasn't been that long since our last video, but it's always nice to catch up with you. [music] So let's dive right in. First up is new documentation about optimizing for generative AI in Google Search. There's no magic trick or secret file involved. Some of the things mentioned here include the importance of providing valuable, unique, non-commodity content as well as providing local, shopping, image and video content. We included some common AEO or GEO misconceptions and initial guidance related to AI agents, a quickly evolving space. We also added some thoughts on third-party SEO tools and services and added updates to our guide on working together with an SEO. We hope these additions provide more clarity to help you continue to create great content that reaches your audience effectively through Google Search. Moving over to Google Search Console, our tool that helps site owners understand how their site is doing in Google Search. In Search Console, we launched generative AI performance reporting. These reports give you insights into your site's visibility within generative AI features on Search, such as AI overviews and AI mode, as well as AI overviews within Discover. For now, we're focusing on impressions as a metric, which is how often your pages were linked in these generative AI features. You can also find information on the pages shown as well as the countries and device types. We're starting by rolling these reports out to a subset of websites, allowing us to review feedback and test them before making them more broadly available. Maybe you already have access. Check it out. It's still early days for these reports. We plan to expand them over time, so your feedback is particularly helpful. I'll add the links below. Also, in Google Search Console is a new control that lets website owners manage how their links and content appear in generative AI search features. With this setting, website owners can choose if they want their site to appear in and help ground responses in those features. I recommend reading the documentation for this control to become better acquainted with its effects for your site and for potential clients that you advise. Your feedback here is also very appreciated since it is still very new. And now, over to some posts from the SEO community. I love going through the various industry newsletters and finding cool articles from you all. Here's a selection just for this time. First up, Kelly Ann Crean with an article about good SEO habits. Working on daily SEO routines doesn't take a lot of time, but consistent actions add up. It's worthwhile. Then, we have Ben Good, Sarita Dincher on how to report on uncertainty. SEO is rarely objective and absolute. Understanding uncertainty isn't easy, but you gain credibility by being direct. Last but not least, Marie Haynes shares her thoughts on what the agentic web could look like in the future. It's fascinating to peek into a potential future and how it intersects with SEO. How will it pan out? We'll have to stay tuned. Shifting gears slightly, there's something new for those of you who work with social media profiles. Your profiles and the posts you make can appear in Google Search. To make it easier to shape your social presence on Search, we're introducing search profiles. They give you a dedicated and customizable space to highlight your content from across platforms. Users can follow your profile, making it easier for them to see your content on Google. With the profile, you'll also see more on how your social content is performing in Search. We're starting with US-based publishers and creators with a sizeable following on at least one platform. We hope to expand this over time, so stay tuned. And now, a bit more from Google Search. We expanded preferred sources where users can add your site, resulting in your content being more likely to appear in top stories for them, as well as being labeled in AI mode and AI overviews. If your site is a potential source, you can add a link and a button to your pages, making it easier for users to add your site. We've also been working on our Search Generative AI features to help creators and publishers build their audiences. For example, we started showing more inline links in AI overviews, added new sections to help explore in-depth articles, and providing more links to first-hand advice from online discussions. And with that, we're almost at the end of this episode. Just a few more short updates. We had our first Search Central Live event in Shanghai and our first event in Australia. We've also been going to other SEO events and have even more events lined up for the coming months, especially in and around Europe. I'm looking forward to a chance to meet with you all. Join us there if you can. And finally, there have been so many discussions around agentic experiences, including announcements from Google I/O, as well as a neat guide on web.dev on how to optimize websites for agents. Check them out if you're curious. And with that, this episode of Google Search News is now complete. Thank you for tuning in. I hope this video was useful, and please add feedback and comments here. We read them all. If you subscribe to this channel, we'll let you know when another episode is ready. In the meantime, [music] I hope you all have a particularly fantastic summer or winter. Bye. >> [music]