Google has signalled that click and query data may never reach the AI performance report in Search Console, the tool publishers use to judge how their sites perform in search. Google search analyst Gary Illyes said the Search Console team wants to add data that makes sense, but he stopped short of saying clicks or queries were that data. For publishers already watching AI answers take over results pages, that non-answer is itself the news, because it leaves the most basic question unanswered: did anyone actually click through?
What Illyes actually said
The exchange began with a LinkedIn post quoting an unnamed Googler. That Googler, speaking at a Google Search Central live session, said clicks and queries were the most requested data set for the AI report. The team expected them to be added, the quote said, but did not know when.
Illyes replied that he did not think the team had phrased it like that. He added that it was interested in giving more data, data that makes sense, but had nothing to announce yet. That reply is careful, not categorical. Illyes did not say clicks will never be reported, and he did not promise they will be.
John Mueller, another Google search analyst, then pushed back on Bluesky. He called the reading of Illyes’s comment a weird one, which leaves open the possibility that click data could still arrive. The original report’s author said he doubted that reading. The two comments together leave publishers with no settled answer.
Why clicks are the missing number
Clicks matter because they are the bridge between being seen and being visited. The main Search Console reports already show clicks for traditional results. Owners can therefore tell whether a ranking produced a visit. In AI Overviews and AI Mode, where the answer itself may satisfy the searcher, that bridge is what publishers most need to measure.
A small study put the click-through rate from AI Overviews and AI Mode at just 0.9 percent. That figure underlines why the missing data hurts. The study, covered in our AI Overviews click study, used a limited sample. It is not a definitive industry rate, but it points to the same gap Illyes was asked about.
The scale of the gap is growing. AI Overviews now appear on more than 80 percent of Google searches, covered in our AI Overviews reach report. The unmeasured surface is therefore no longer a niche experiment. When most searches carry an AI answer, a report that cannot show clicks cannot show how most of search is performing for publishers.
Our read
The most plausible reading is that Google is not refusing clicks on principle. It may simply be unsure what a click means inside an AI answer. A click on a cited link, a click to expand an answer, and a click after a follow-up question are different actions. Bundling them into one familiar metric could mislead more than it informs.
There is also a commercial tension Google has not addressed. Google charges advertisers on a cost-per-click basis. Clicks are the currency of its business. Yet organic publishers are being told that the number for AI results may not make sense. That contrast will fuel suspicion the data is withheld because it would show how little traffic AI answers send onward.
Mueller’s pushback is worth taking seriously, because it suggests the debate inside Google is not settled. A single LinkedIn reply is not a product roadmap. Illyes’s own wording leaves room for a future announcement. Publishers should therefore treat this as a warning, not a verdict, and keep pressing for a defined AI click metric.
Why It Matters
Without click data, publishers cannot prove the value of ranking in AI answers. They cannot compare AI traffic with traditional search traffic. They also cannot make sound decisions about where to invest in content. That matters for newsrooms, retailers and small sites alike, because content budgets follow measurable returns, and an unmeasured channel will lose those budgets by default.
Search Console has already expanded into new surfaces before. It now tracks social posts in search, covered in our Search Console social posts report. That expansion shows the tool can grow when Google decides a surface matters. Publishers will now ask why AI answers, the largest change to search in years, remain the exception to that pattern.
For now, the practical advice is unchanged. Track AI visibility with third-party tools. Treat small click studies as directional rather than definitive. Do not assume that appearing in an AI answer equals being visited. Until Google defines and publishes an AI click metric, that distinction is the one publishers must keep in front of every traffic report they read.
Background
Google’s Search Console AI performance report is meant to show how sites appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Publishers have long asked for the click and query data that would make it comparable with traditional search reporting. Illyes’s November 2 comments, and Mueller’s response the same day, leave that request unanswered, with no announcement and no timetable from Google.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable report
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