Answer first: Google’s Generative AI performance report counts impressions: how many times a link to your site was shown in AI Overviews or AI Mode. It is not a list of the searches people typed, not a click total, and not proof that an answer cited you. As of 31 August 2026 Google says these insights are available to websites worldwide, so a UK firm and an Isle of Man firm use the same report. If the report is missing, Google says that usually means the property has not had enough of those impressions, which can also happen because the property is excluded. Recheck the help pages below before you brief anyone from a number. This article records them for a reader on 15 October 2026.
What does the report count?
Open the verified property in Search Console and use the Generative AI performance report. Google’s help page says you can use it to see how organic impressions from Search generative AI features change over time, which pages get the highest or lowest impressions, and where those impressions originate, for example by device or country.
The same page says the report includes impressions for:
- AI Overviews
- AI Mode
Google says it expects to update that list. Search Labs experiments are not included, because those experiments are still in development. Google Discover is not this report. The help page points Discover impressions to a separate generative AI performance report for Discover.
An impression, on this page, is how many times links to your site were shown to a user in a generative AI feature on Google Search. Google’s impressions, position, and clicks page is the counting rule that page points to. The general rule there is that an impression is counted when an item appears in the current page of results, whether or not it is scrolled into view, as long as the user does not have to click to see more results. Inside a carousel or an expanding section, the item typically has to be scrolled into view or expanded. Scrolling away and back during the same query does not count as another impression.
For the two features in this report, that page adds:
- AI Overviews. Clicking a link to an external page in the overview counts as a click. Impressions follow the standard rules. The overview occupies a single position in the results, and every link in it is assigned that same position.
- AI Mode. Clicking a link to an external page counts as a click. Impressions follow the standard rules. Position follows the same methodology as a Search results page. A follow-up question inside AI Mode is a new query, and the impressions, positions, and clicks in that new response are counted for the new query.
Those click and position definitions live on the counting page, which describes Performance reports. The Generative AI performance report’s own help page describes impression data, and the dimensions it names are pages, countries, dates, and devices. It does not describe a queries tab, clicks, click-through rate, or average position on that report. Do not invent them from a screenshot of a different screen.
Why is the report missing?
Google’s note is short. Not seeing the report usually happens when the site has not received enough impressions in generative AI features on Google Search. The same note says this may be because you excluded the site. Eligibility means the property is set to include its links and content. That switch is Settings, then Search generative AI, and it is written up in the include or exclude guide.
A missing report is therefore two checks, not a verdict:
- Read Include, Exclude, or Inherit on the property that matches the host customers use.
- If the setting is Include, or Inherit from a parent that is Include, write down that the report was not shown, and the date. Google has not published a minimum impression count on the page recorded here. Do not fill that gap with a guess.
Exclude means Google’s Search generative AI control says you will not receive traffic or impressions from those features. An empty report after Exclude is consistent with that. It is not, by itself, evidence that ordinary Search results changed. The control guide is the boundary. This article is only how to read the measurement.
Which filters change the number?
The default view is impressions for the supported features. You change it with dimensions, a date range, and a search-type filter.
Pages. Grouped by the final URL linked from a generative AI feature, after redirects. Google says that, as in the ordinary performance report, most of this data is assigned to the canonical URL, not to a duplicate. The counting page says a redirect after the click does not change which URL is assigned the impression or the click. If the www and non-www hosts, or a trailing-slash duplicate, collapse to one canonical, the table follows that choice. Fix the canonical if the wrong URL is the one you want understood. Do not publish a second copy of the page to chase the row.
Countries. Grouped by the country where the search originated. That is the searcher’s location in Google’s data, not the towns you serve and not the address on your footer.
Dates. Grouped by day, week, or month, depending on the granularity you pick. All dates are in Pacific Time. A UK or Isle of Man morning can still be the previous date on this chart. The newest data can be preliminary: still being collected, and it might change in the next few hours. Google marks that with a dotted line.
Devices. Desktop, tablet, or mobile. The device is the one used for the search, not a statement about your page layout.
Search type. Web, text-based: queries typed into the standard Google search bar. Web, multimodal: searches that use images, including Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, uploaded images, and Chrome image search. A trades firm that wants to know whether photo searches produced impressions can filter to multimodal. The filter does not show you the photo, and it does not name the query.
Google says the usual data limitations of the Search performance report also apply, including the 1,000 row limitation and the time period. If a long page list is cut off, the help page does not say which rows are dropped. Do not treat a short table as a complete inventory of every URL.
Why do the chart and the pages table disagree?
They are added up differently. Google says chart data is aggregated by property. If two results from the same site appeared in a generative AI feature, they count as a single impression in the chart total. A URL filter changes the chart so it aggregates by URL.
Table aggregation depends on the tab. Country, device, and date are aggregated by property. Page is aggregated by page. Chart totals can differ from table totals because of that. Google points owners to the same troubleshooting notes it uses for ordinary performance reports.
The practical reading for a small site: the chart answers “was this property shown?”, collapsed so two of your links in one feature do not inflate the line. The pages tab answers “which URL was the link?”. Quote the one you mean. Do not average them.
Export is a separate trap. The report can download the chart and the table. Google says values shown as ~ or - (not available, or not a number) become zeros in the download. A zero in the spreadsheet can be a dash on the screen. Read the screen before you put the file in a slide.
If you are looking at 13 to 17 August 2026, read Google’s data anomalies page before you call the dip a real loss of visibility. Google says a logging error decreased impressions on this report for those dates, that the issue was data logging only, and, in an update on 21 August, that the missing data had been restored and that the Performance report now shows complete metrics.
Where do ordinary Search clicks fit?
Two Google pages describe the relationship, and they are not a sum.
The AI features guide says sites appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in overall search traffic in Search Console, in the Performance report, within the Web search type. It also says Google has seen that clicks from search results pages with AI Overviews are higher quality, in the sense that people are more likely to spend longer on the site. That is Google’s observation about its own product. It is not a figure for your firm, and it is not a promise.
The generative AI report’s help page says that report includes data from the Web search type in the Performance report. Read the dedicated report when you want impressions inside AI Overviews and AI Mode. Read the ordinary Performance report when you want overall Web search traffic, which Google says already includes those appearances. Do not add the two impression totals together. This article will not invent a subtraction that Google has not published.
Clicks on a link inside an AI Overview or AI Mode are defined on the counting page, and the AI features guide places those appearances in the Web performance totals. Absence of a click metric on the generative AI report’s help page is not the same statement as “nobody clicked”. It means this report, as documented, is the impression view.
What should a local firm not infer from a country row?
The countries tab is where the search started. It does not publish your service area, and it does not check that your page tells the truth about coverage.
A row for the United Kingdom does not mean the searcher was in the town you cover. Google’s help page, in the text recorded here, does not name the Isle of Man as its own country. Open the tab and read the rows that are actually there. Do not add a country because a template expected one.
An impression also does not mean the sentence Google showed was the sentence you would say on the phone. The AI features guide says AI Overviews and AI Mode may use query fan-out, issuing related searches. The dimensions named on the report do not include those queries. You cannot reconstruct the question from the country and the page alone.
What you can do is open the URL in the pages tab, logged out, and read the first screen. The coverage sentence should name where you work, and where you do not, when callers assume a wider area. That writing job is the local citations guide. A stack of near-copy town pages is not how you “get more rows” in this table. Google’s generative AI optimisation guide says that creating separate pages for every query variation, mainly to manipulate rankings or generative AI responses, violates its scaled content abuse policy.
The same guide is where Google defines the labels people sell. It says AEO means answer engine optimisation and GEO means generative engine optimisation, and that, for Google Search, optimising for generative AI search is still SEO. It also says no third-party tool has access to Google’s internal ranking or AI systems. A rank tracker, or a chat screenshot, is not a substitute for this report. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Bing, Copilot, and Apple are not rows in it. Those controls are in the citations guide and the Perplexity, Bing, Copilot and Apple guide.
What should I check on the day I open it?
Do this on the property customers use. Write the date next to whatever you find.
- Read Settings, then Search generative AI. Note Include, Exclude, or Inherit.
- Open the Generative AI performance report. If it is absent, stop at Google’s two reasons: not enough impressions, or the property is excluded. Do not commission a page for every parish because the chart is blank.
- Set the date range, and remember the dates are Pacific Time. If today’s line is dotted, do not judge today.
- Read the chart total, then the pages tab. Expect them to differ when more than one of your URLs was linked.
- If photo search matters to the work you do, look at Web multimodal separately from Web text-based. Write down which filter you used.
- Read countries only as the origin of the search.
- If you export, compare dashes on the screen with zeros in the file before you send it on.
- Open one URL from the pages tab. Confirm the answer a person needs is text on that page. How to shape that page is the service-page guide. How to review the public page without pretending to see inside the model is the visibility audit.
What should I not claim?
- That an impression is a click, an enquiry, or a citation you can paste into a proposal.
- That a missing report is a penalty. Google’s stated reasons are not enough impressions, and exclusion.
- That the report lists the queries, including fan-out queries. The help page does not describe that tab.
- That this report’s impressions should be added to the Web performance total. Google says the report includes data from that Web search type.
- That a third-party tool has Google’s internal AI metrics. Google says none does.
- That ChatGPT or another assistant is measured here.
- A result, a town, or a before-and-after Halo has not published with evidence. This guide does not add one.
Where Halo fits
Halo’s search, AEO and content service covers the public page: the answer in the first screen, internal links, and structured data that matches the visible words. The report itself sits in the Search Console property you verify. Halo does not need that login to read the URL the pages tab is pointing at.
To start, send that URL through the free AI audit. If you already have the report, name the date range, the search-type filter, and whether the line you care about was dotted. Halo does not guarantee impressions, citations, clicks, or enquiries.
FAQ
Does a missing Generative AI performance report mean my site is excluded from AI Overviews?
Not by itself. Google says the report is usually missing when the site has not received enough impressions in those features, and that this may be because you excluded the site. Read Settings, then Search generative AI, before you treat a blank report as either a block or a ranking failure.
Is an impression in this report the same as a visit?
No. Google defines an impression here as a link to your site being shown in a generative AI feature. A click is a separate event, defined on Google’s counting page as clicking a link to an external page. An enquiry is something that happens on your site after that, and this report does not count it.
Can I see which searches produced the AI Overview impression?
The report’s help page names pages, countries, dates, and devices. It does not describe a queries tab. Google’s counting page says a follow-up inside AI Mode is a new query, but that does not put the wording of the query on this report. You cannot rebuild the question from the page URL and the country.
Should I add these impressions to my ordinary Web performance impressions?
No. Google says the generative AI performance report includes data from the Web search type in the Performance report, and the AI features guide says appearances in AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in that Web traffic. Adding the totals would mix two views of related data. Google has not published a formula for subtracting one from the other.
Does the countries tab show whether an Isle of Man firm covers the Island?
No. The countries tab groups impressions by the country where the search originated. It is not your service area. Google’s help page, as recorded here, does not name a separate Isle of Man row. Read the rows on your property, and keep the coverage sentence on your own page.
Will a higher impression number in this report get me more leads?
The report does not measure leads. It measures how often a link was shown in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Google says meeting the technical requirements still does not mean a page will be crawled, indexed, or shown. A higher impression line is not a forecast.
Sources
- Google Search Console Help, Generative AI performance report (Search), including the 31 August 2026 worldwide rollout, AI Overviews and AI Mode, the missing-report note, dimensions, search types, chart and table aggregation, Pacific Time, preliminary data, and the export rule for tildes and dashes.
- Google Search Console Help, What are impressions, position, and clicks?, including standard impression rules and the AI Overviews and AI Mode click, impression, and position notes.
- Google Search Central, AI features and your website, including Web search type reporting, query fan-out, and the statement that indexing and serving are not guaranteed.
- Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, including the definitions of AEO and GEO, scaled content abuse, the Generative AI performance report, and the statement that no third-party tool has Google’s internal ranking or AI metrics.
- Google Search Console Help, Data anomalies in Search Console, including the 13 to 17 August 2026 logging error on this report and the 21 August update that the missing data was restored.
- Google Search Console Help, Search generative AI control, including Include and Exclude, and the statement that Exclude means you will not receive traffic or impressions from those features.
