Google’s Mueller Explains How AI Search Impressions Get Counted

Google’s John Mueller clarified how impressions are tallied in Search Console’s new generative AI report: an impression counts when a link to your page appears in AI Overviews or AI Mode, but if users must “activate” a link to reveal it, it only counts once they do so. This explains why impression counts might seem lower than expected. Mueller’s comments, made on Bluesky, address gaps in Google’s official documentation regarding combined cards and clustered results, though questions about favicons and X posts remain unresolved as the report continues limited testing.