Google has been including the Top Stories carousel within AI Overviews rather than displaying it down the page as its own module, according to tracking data published by NewsDash, a company that sells visibility tracking to news publishers.
Among the news searches the company followed where Google shows Top Stories, 15.5% in the US and 17.46% in the UK had a carousel within the AI Overview. Entertainment was at the forefront of both countries. The report does not say how large the sample was, how many searches it included, or when the data came from.
It is one place rather than two. The two never appeared together in the results tracked by NewsDash. Founder and CEO John Shehata, who wrote the report, calls it the best place on the page. There is no data yet comparing clicks on the two versions.
Google’s new opt-out setting now has news embedded in it.
That’s where Google’s AI output comes in
Google search console opt-out AI features include AI Overview, and Google says it started considering this setting on June 17. Google launched a test with a subset of UK site owners, and its help page now says opt-out for a subset of website owners.
Shehata learns that the outgoing publisher will exit the top stories carousel within the AI Overview, because the carousel is a set of publisher links that are displayed within one of the features that cover the setting. He calls that learning more confidence than a proven result, and says NewsDash plans to test it.
Google didn’t say either way. Its help page says that links and content from the outgoing site will not appear in covered features, and that content from other sites will still be available there. Google writes the rule for the whole element, not the parts within it, so it doesn’t say what happens in the carousel.
Google-Extended is not a Search Exit
Shehata writes that publishers combine two controls. Google’s search page says Google-Extended controls that clear content train future Gemini models and help ground responses in Gemini apps and by using Google Search in Vertex AI. The same page says it doesn’t affect whether the site is in Google search. Blocking it by itself, does not block the publisher from AI Overview, AI Mode, or Top Stories placement.
Why This Matters
So far the exit question has been about content, and whether Google is able to use the newsroom function to respond to something a reader would click on. NewsDash’s data puts the headlines themselves on the same page. When the carousel comes within the AI Overview, the element the publisher exits from is also where the publisher title resides.
That changes what the choice costs without making the costs more easily identifiable. Google lists the settings for every feature and doesn’t say what happens to the carousel within one. The decision-making newsroom this week weighed strong opposition to AI briefings against the unknown cost of losing news visibility.
Looking Forward
Google says it expects to add to the list of features it covers as it builds Search, so the three named today may not be the full list later. So the setting covers more places over time, not less. It’s currently only relevant to a subset of sites that have it.
Featured image: Golden Dayz/Shutterstock
