UK CMA requires Google to report AI search clicks and CTR separately for publishers

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has ordered Google to give publishers detailed reporting on engagement with its search-generated AI features, with metrics broken down by publisher and kept separate from ordinary organic search results. According to a report on dev.to, the obligation stems from the regulator's Publisher Conduct Requirement (PCR), issued after the CMA designated Google as holding Strategic Market Status in general search services, and it covers AI Overviews and AI Mode.

What Google must provide

The dev.to report lists the core reporting duties:

• Impressions, clicks and click-through rate (CTR) tied specifically to search-generated AI features
• Data aggregated across AI Overviews and AI Mode
• Publisher-level breakdowns
• A clear split between exposure in AI features and exposure in conventional organic listings

The requirement reaches beyond traffic numbers. Google must also explain how publisher content is used, attributed and presented to end users, and must publish Explanatory Information covering attribution and grounding — how AI answers cite and draw on source material. The CMA issued the requirement with an implementation timetable, plus Interpretative Notes on how it should be understood.

The deadlines to track

Three dates frame the rollout:

• 3 December 2026 — Google's deadline to comply with the Publisher Conduct Requirement
• 3 January 2027 — the first compliance report is due to the CMA, covering 3 June to 3 December 2026, with a non-confidential version to be published
• 3 March 2027 — the target for rolling out a page-level grounding control, which Google has an extra three months to deliver after the main deadline

The measurement gap this closes

Search Console has historically let publishers analyse clicks, impressions, CTR and average position for standard Google Search results. AI-generated answers break that model, because a page can underpin an AI response without sending a single click to the publisher's site.

As Search Engine Journal's reporting, cited by the dev.to article, notes, Google currently surfaces AI impressions through the Generative AI Performance Report in Search Console, while AI clicks remain folded into the standard Performance report. No standalone publisher-level view of AI clicks and CTR exists today.

The CMA's requirement is designed to make that separation visible. Publishers would be able to assess AI-feature impressions, clicks and CTR on their own, rather than reading Search Console as one blended channel that mixes AI and conventional results.

What the data will and will not prove

The dev.to report adds a caveat worth keeping in mind: an AI impression does not automatically translate into a visit, a citation or commercial value. Heavy AI-feature exposure could coexist with thin referral traffic, while a smaller footprint might produce more valuable visits. The obligation improves publishers' ability to analyse what is happening, but it does not by itself prove that AI visibility drives traffic, conversions or revenue.

The rule is also UK-specific. The available materials do not establish that Google must offer identical reporting in every market. The dev.to article suggests UK publishers use the lead time to record current organic baselines, agree internally on definitions for AI-feature impressions and clicks, and assign ownership of the coming publisher- and page-level data across analytics, SEO, editorial and commercial teams.

Why it matters

This is a significant web policy shift, forcing transparency into how AI-powered search treats the publishers whose content it draws on. The unresolved question of the AI search era is whether features like AI Overviews create discovery or quietly absorb referral traffic, and until now publishers have had no clean data with which to answer it. Publisher-level metrics separating AI exposure from organic results would let them measure the effect on their own sites instead of inferring it from merged totals.

The move also shows how the UK's digital competition regime will operate in practice: conduct requirements with fixed deadlines, published compliance reports and specific transparency duties attached to Strategic Market Status. If the data proves useful, it could become a template that regulators and publishers elsewhere push Google to replicate.