Guide
How to get cited by Gemini
Google-Extended controls Gemini Apps grounding and future Gemini training. AI Overviews stay a Google Search feature with a different control.
14 October 2026 · CiteScore Team · 9 min read
“Gemini” covers two different Google products, and they do not share one robots.txt switch. Gemini Apps and Grounding with Google Search on Vertex AI use the Google-Extended token. AI Overviews and AI Mode are Google Search. CiteScore does not query Gemini or Google. The claims below are from Google’s crawler page and Search Central.
The Search half of this is Google AI Overviews optimization. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot publish different controls, linked from how to get cited by AI answer engines.
Two products, two controls
| Surface | What Google says governs it |
|---|---|
| Gemini Apps and Vertex grounding | Google-Extended in robots.txt. Google’s common crawlers page says this token manages whether crawled content may train future Gemini models, and whether it may ground answers in Gemini Apps and Grounding with Google Search on Vertex AI. Grounding means providing content from the Google Search index to the model at prompt time. |
| AI Overviews and AI Mode | Google Search. The AI features guide says a page has to be indexed and eligible for a snippet. Googlebot, snippet controls, and the Search Console generative AI setting are the controls. Google-Extended is not one of them. |
Google says Google-Extended does not change inclusion or ranking in Google Search, and it has no separate HTTP user-agent. Crawling is done with existing Google user-agents. The token only exists as a robots.txt control. Disallowing it opts the site out of that Gemini training and grounding use. It does not remove the site from AI Overviews.
Leave Gemini Apps able to ground
If the goal is grounding in Gemini Apps, do not publish this group. A disallow is the opt-out Google documents:
User-agent: Google-Extended Disallow: /
The write-up is Google’s common crawlers. To limit the models used inside Search’s generative features, Search Console Help points at this same token, not at the Search inclusion control. That Search control — include or exclude links in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative features in Discover — is Search generative AI features. Include is the default. Google says the control is not a ranking signal for the rest of Search.
The optimization guide says there is no special markup or Markdown file required to appear in Google Search, including its generative features. An llms.txt file neither helps nor harms that visibility. Structured data still has to match the visible page. The markup examples are on schema markup for AI search.
What a robots line does not do
Allowing Google-Extended does not publish a Gemini citation. Google does not give a rate. A page that is not in the Search index is not available as Search-index grounding. Fetch access for Googlebot, a snippet, and the Search Console include setting are the Search side. The token above is the Gemini Apps side. The three tokens the CiteScore audit records, and what Google-Extended does not control, are on AI crawlers.
Check the public files
The free check does read Google-Extended, and reports allow, disallow, or not mentioned. It does not query Gemini, and it does not read the Search Console generative AI setting.
Run the free check on the host. It reads the homepage, robots.txt for GPTBot, PerplexityBot, and Google-Extended, /llms.txt, a sitemap, and JSON-LD on the homepage. It does not log into an answer engine. One URL continues at checkout.
Sources
- Google’s common crawlers. Google-Extended: training, grounding, no separate user-agent, no effect on Search inclusion or ranking.
- AI features and your website and optimizing your website for generative AI features. Indexing, snippets, and the files Google says you do not need.
- Search generative AI features in Search Console. The include or exclude control for AI Overviews and AI Mode.