Search · 2026/09/27

Google is testing pay for AI-used pages. Don’t budget that cheque

Mid-September 2026, Google started an invite-only Search Console pilot called AI contribution. Digiday and Search Engine Land both covered it. If Gemini, AI Overviews or AI Mode judges that a page significantly shaped an answer while it was being written, an invited site might see a monthly figure. Site-wide impressions, or a fact-check or link after the answer already exists, do not count toward this pilot. The formula and the per-URL line are not on the panel. This is not money ZhuYun books this month.

This is not a switch that turns on for every site. If your Search Console has no AI contribution panel, your domain is not on the invite list. When you open the console, use the domain property. We use sc-domain so www and the bare host are not read as two different sites. Digiday said at least dozens of publishers were approached. People who saw trial numbers called them peanuts next to ad revenue. Those figures belong to those publishers. They are not a small firm’s revenue, and they are not a payment ZhuYun will receive. Help text splits “contribution while the answer is generated” from “cited after the answer.” A later mention, or a link added underneath, does not produce this pilot’s monthly figure.

“Significant contribution,” in the public wording, stops at whether your page shaped the answer while it was being written. Weights are unpublished, and there is no ledger by URL. Being named in a summary, with a blue link underneath, is a different event from this pilot’s monthly figure. A small firm has no newsroom licensing table, and not enough clicks to treat the pilot as revenue. We already said that in content credit. This invite-only test does not reverse that judgment. If you are not invited, there is no payment.

What you still do is write the service clearly: what you do, what you refuse, where the base is, and how to write. Clear lines make a summary less likely to misstate you, and they let someone who actually wants a vendor click through. Do not open a stack of new posts to chase a pilot that is not in the books yet. Thin mass pages are how spam updates land. If your domain is invited later, log the monthly figure as a footnote, not as a forecast. We will not describe the invite-only program as money the studio is about to receive.

Once a month, the person who owns Search Console opens it. They look at two things: whether an AI contribution panel has appeared, and whether the first paragraph of a page named in a summary invents a city or a contact. If there is no panel, take the news item off the weekly meeting and do not ask again every week whether it will hit the books. If there is a panel, read whether that page’s sentences are right before you look for a monthly figure. A “GEO pack” does not get Google to invite you, and it does not write a formula that has not been published. Until the formula is public, any plan to “write a pile of posts and collect this income” is a guess. A service page that states what you do and what you refuse is more practical than guessing how Google pays. Before an invite, this pilot is zero on the revenue sheet. Talk about a monthly figure after a panel exists. Do not count the money before the panel is there.

Our own September export is ordinary search: the romanized brand, a few dozen impressions, almost no clicks. That table is not a statement for “Google has started paying,” and it cannot be used to estimate what this pilot would pay. We have not written the invite-only program down as income the studio will receive. If a page is mentioned in a summary, check whether that paragraph is accurate before you look at a wallet. How we read impressions: impressions without clicks.

Two scenes that match

The meeting is almost over. Someone turns a phone around. The screen is someone else’s screenshot, in large type: “Search Console says we can earn from AI now.” Ask first whether their own Search Console shows an AI contribution panel. If it does not, that screenshot is someone else’s pilot. Do not book it as their revenue, and do not book it as ours. Leave the screenshot in the meeting note, marked that the console had no panel, and end the topic there.

The more common question is narrower. Sales is not asking whether the panel is there. They ask whether the firm should buy a “GEO pack” in order to collect Google’s payment. The person asking is usually not invited inside Search Console. Even if they were, the trial figures Digiday reported for large publishers were called peanuts next to ads. A GEO pack does not decide whether Google pays this monthly figure, and it does not decide whether ZhuYun or your company has that income this month.

Check whether the site describes you Structure

Sources: Digiday, 14 Sep 2026; SEL.