Google announced five changes to links in AI Search on October 15, two of them tests, with AI Mode and AI Overviews both named in the post’s description. The Search Console Generative AI performance report, open to all sites since August 31, still describes impressions only. Google’s post does not mention Search Console or any metrics for site owners.
What did Google add or test in AI Search links?
The post, “More ways to connect with the web from Search”, is signed by Hema Budaraju, VP, Product Management. Its opening paragraph carries a figure: the number of people who use the Preferred Sources feature “has grown by more than 7x since the start of the year”. That is Google’s wording and Google’s count.
The five changes differ in status, so the table below keeps them apart.
| Change | Status |
|---|---|
| More inline links, shown higher in responses | Increases made; “launching updates” to show them higher |
| Section at the top with one or two official links | “We’ll be testing” |
| News carousels in more locations and languages | “Starting to roll out” |
| Related-article links with image thumbnails | Redesign, end of some responses |
| Creator and publisher names on video results | Test, AI Mode |
Only the last item names AI Mode. The other four refer to “AI experiences”, “AI Search features” or “AI responses”, so this post does not tie them to one surface. It also publishes no number for how many links were added. The inline-link item says only “continued and substantial increases”.
Does Search Console show clicks from AI Mode and AI Overviews?
Search Console counts those clicks, but only inside overall Web clicks, and not in the AI report. The Generative AI performance report help page says “the default view of the report shows impression data for your site in the supported features”, AI Overviews and AI Mode, and it describes no click metric. Clicks are counted in the regular Performance report: Google’s “What are impressions, position, and clicks?” page says “clicking a link to an external page in AI Mode counts as a click”, and gives the same rule for AI Overviews.
What the help pages say about the new formats
Neither page has an entry for the news carousels, the top section or the thumbnail links. On impressions, the AI Mode and AI Overviews entries say only that “standard impression rules apply”, and for carousels the standard rule is that the item “must typically be scrolled into view within the carousel, or expanded by a click, to register an impression”.
The creator names are a separate case. By Search Console’s general rule, “clicking a link that stays inside the Google platform is not counted as a click”. Search Engine Roundtable notes that those creator links go to Google pages, “the Search profile page, first”. Google’s post says the same: the links go “directly to their Search profiles in AI Mode”. How Google logs that particular test is not documented, so treat it as unknown.
The Generative AI report has no position field either. As our earlier note on AI Overview position in Search Console explains, every link inside an AI Overview takes the block’s single position, however many links the block holds.
What Google told Search Engine Roundtable
Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable wants click data in the AI reports, and his headline says Google “Won’t Show” it. He quotes what Google told him: “We’re continuing to work with website owners to understand what insights will be most helpful to inform their strategies, and we’ll introduce additional metrics over time.”
The statement names no metric and no date. It does not say that clicks are coming, and anything firmer would be a guess.
How to read AI numbers after October 15
Three practical points follow from Google’s post and help pages.
- Read AI impressions in the Generative AI report. Read clicks from AI links as part of Web clicks, with no separate line.
- Annotate October 15 on any AI-impression trend. Google gives no date range for the inline-link increase, so a step in the chart may or may not be this change.
- In the AI Mode video test, a tap on a creator or publisher name opens their Search profile on Google, not their site.
The announcement behind our note on the AI Mode monitoring rollout also left something out: it mentioned no links. Here the links are the feature, and the report built for AI features describes impressions only.