How this works
Google's AI features (AI Overviews and AI Mode) are part of Google Search. They use the same crawler as the rest of Search: Googlebot. There is no separate "AI crawler" you can turn off while keeping your normal search results.
Google-Extended is a different thing. It controls whether your content can be used for AI training and for grounding in some of Google's other systems, such as the Gemini app. Google states that Google-Extended doesn't govern Search, so blocking it does not remove you from AI Overviews.
What this means in practice
- Want to appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode? Allow Googlebot. That's the whole answer.
- Want to stay out of Gemini app grounding and AI training? Block Google-Extended. Your Search presence, AI features included, stays as it is.
- Blocking Googlebot removes you from Google altogether: AI answers and ordinary blue links alike. This is almost never what a business wants.
Why it matters
Site owners who want to "opt out of Google's AI" often block Googlebot, and quietly delete themselves from Google Search. The opposite mistake is just as common: blocking Google-Extended, assuming it keeps you out of AI Overviews, and being surprised to still appear there.
How to fix
1. Check your robots.txt. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. If you find this, your site is blocked from Google entirely:
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /Delete those lines. With no rule against it, Googlebot is allowed.
2. Check bot protection on your CDN or hosting. If robots.txt is clean and Google still can't get in, something is refusing the crawler at server level. On Cloudflare that's usually the Block AI Bots setting or a firewall rule.
3. If you want less of your text quoted, limit instead of blocking. Google offers nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet to control how much of a page can be shown, without removing the page from Search.
Where to change this on your platform
WordPress
robots.txt is normally managed by your SEO plugin: editing robots.txt in Yoast SEO.
Shopify
the file comes from a theme template: editing robots.txt.liquid.
Wix
there's a built-in editor: editing your site's robots.txt file.
Squarespace
you can't edit the file by hand. One checkbox writes it for you: Request that AI models exclude your site, under Settings → Crawlers. It blocks Google-Extended but leaves Googlebot alone, so your Search and AI Overviews presence is unaffected.
If you can't find the setting
If robots.txt looks right and your security settings are off, ask your hosting provider whether they filter crawler traffic.
