How Google AI Mode Clicks and Impressions Appear in Search Console

Summary

Google has confirmed that AI Mode traffic is included in Google Search Console’s Performance report, but it does not provide a separate AI Mode report. This case study uses Google Bulk Data Export and controlled searches across browsers, VPNs, login states, websites and query volumes to examine how the data is recorded. Clicks on inline links, sidebar citations, citations revealed through “show all,” and links opened during follow-up prompts were all tracked; a follow-up prompt was recorded as a new page. The author found that Google Links also affect position calculations: links that appeared to be positions one and two were reported as positions eight and nine when intervening links were counted. Repeated clicks on the same URL from anonymized queries can be aggregated into one row, with the average position calculated across clicks, such as an average of three for clicks at positions one and five. A test that generated 101 clicks from roughly 500 searches still produced no visible query data, suggesting that volume alone may not overcome anonymization. Sidebar citation clicks were reported with visible impressions and clicks, and one citation ranked as position one. The author notes that other observations, including industry reports of AI Mode queries appearing in Search Console, may reflect later changes after AI Mode moved from a google.ai domain to Google.com, so the findings may need to be re-tested.