SeoGuard
Noticeagents.google-ai-snippet

The page limits what Google's AI answers can use

Why it matters

AI Overviews and AI Mode are part of Google Search, and the controls that limit them are the ones that limit a page's snippet. Google says nosnippet "will also prevent the content from being used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode", and that max-snippet "will also limit how much of the content may be used" there. So a page that sets either is quoted less, or not at all, in Google's AI answers, as well as showing a shorter snippet in its results.

That may be exactly what was meant, which is why this is a notice. It is often not: a nosnippet copied from a template, or a small max-snippet set years ago for the results page alone. Blocking Google-Extended in robots.txt does none of this; it governs Gemini's training, not Search.

We read the robots meta tags and the X-Robots-Tag header, for Googlebot or for every crawler. We don't look at data-nosnippet, which keeps parts of a page out in the same way.

Sources: Robots meta tag specifications, AI features and your website.

How to fix it

If the page should be quoted in Google's AI answers, remove nosnippet from its robots meta tag (or the X-Robots-Tag header), or raise max-snippet; -1 is no limit:

<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:-1">

To keep only part of a page out, wrap that part in an element with data-nosnippet instead.

Examples

These are the rule's own test pages, and what it says about each. They are run on every change to the rule book.

<html lang="en">
<title>A page</title>
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow, max-snippet:50">
<h1>A page</h1>

NoticeThe page limits Google's snippets to 50 characters (max-snippet:50), which also limits how much of it AI Overviews and AI Mode may use.

fail-max-snippet
<html lang="en">
<title>A page</title>
<meta name="robots" content="nosnippet">
<h1>A page</h1>

NoticeThe page says nosnippet, so Google won't use its content as a direct input for AI Overviews or AI Mode, and shows no snippet of it in results.

fail-nosnippet
<html lang="en">
<title>A page</title>
<h1>A page</h1>

PassedNothing on the page limits what Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode may use of it.

pass-plain
<html lang="en">
<title>A page</title>
<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large">
<h1>A page</h1>

PassedNothing on the page limits what Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode may use of it.

pass-unlimited