What happens if Google rewrites your landing page with AI

Much of the talk about Google rewriting landing pages traces back to a patent. Granted in January 2026, it describes scoring an organisation's landing page and, when the score crosses a threshold, showing searchers a link to a page Google's AI has built for that organisation.¹ Reactions ranged from predictions that Google would replace websites with its own pages² to a reading that limits it to shopping and ads.³ As of November 2026 Google has not launched anything like it. Several narrower kinds of rewriting are live, though, and some already change what people see before they reach your page.

This post covers the patent first, since it is what the question usually means, then the features that rewrite or reroute pages today: AI Max in Google Ads, title links and AI-written headlines, AI Overviews and AI Mode, and Gemini in Chrome. How Google's AI features use pages in general is covered in the AI search guide.

Google's US patent 12,536,233, titled “AI-generated content page tailored to a specific user”, was filed on 3 January 2025 and granted on 27 January 2026. Its first claim describes a system that receives a search, builds a results page with a result linking to an organisation's landing page, and calculates a landing page score for that page. If the score exceeds a threshold, the system builds an updated results page carrying a navigation link to an AI-generated page for the same organisation.¹

The dependent claims fill in the detail. The score can be based on conversion rate, bounce rate, click-through rate, or the quality of the page's design or content, and one claim has the threshold crossed when a page lacks a product filter. The generated page can carry a call-to-action button to a product page, a product feed, an AI chatbot, a sitelink to a product detail page and information about the searcher's previous query. The updated results page can add a personalised headline, suggested filters and suggested clusters, and the link to the generated page can sit inside a sponsored content item.¹

Is Google using it?

There is no sign that it is. None of the coverage I read carried a statement from Google or reported the feature in live results,²⁵ and a granted patent protects an invention without saying anything about whether it will ship.

How far it would reach is disputed. Roger Montti of Search Engine Journal read it as a shopping feature aimed mainly at paid search. He pointed out that the background describes a shopper struggling to navigate a landing page to buy a product, and that every example, metric and interface element involves products, retail or ads.³ The claims are wider than the examples: they speak of an organisation and its landing page, and the sponsored placement is one variation among several.¹ My reading is that the patent is drafted broadly, as patents usually are, and that the version Google would most plausibly build is the one its examples describe: a shopping page for a search where the business's own page converts poorly.

If something like this launched, a searcher's first view of your offer would be a page Google designed around their query and earlier searches. You would lose the layout, the order of the argument, the proof you chose to put first and any cross-sell on your own page. Going by the claims, the sale would probably still happen on your site, because the generated page links to your product pages,¹ but the visitor would arrive later in their decision, having already read Google's version of your pitch.

The claims do not say where Google would get conversion or bounce rates for someone else's page. PPC Land noted that putting the link in a sponsored placement raises questions about how costs and attribution would be allocated, and the patent does not answer them.²

The scoring signals are the useful part for anyone planning ahead. Conversion rate, bounce rate, click-through rate, design and content quality, and product filters on category pages are all things a business already has reasons to improve.¹ On the patent's own logic, a page that converts well and lets people narrow down products gives Google the weakest case for replacing it.

The live version of Google picking your landing page is in Google Ads. AI Max for Search is a set of targeting and creative features added to a Search campaign. Turning it on switches on search term matching, text customisation and final URL expansion, and each can be switched off separately.⁴ Final URL expansion sends traffic to the page on your site Google judges most relevant when it expects better performance, limited to URLs that are query-relevant and themed to the ad group, and pinned assets may be ignored when it picks a different page.⁴

Text customisation, which final URL expansion depends on, writes extra headlines and descriptions. It draws on your domain, landing page, existing ads and the keywords in the ad group, takes snippets from landing page titles, descriptions and meta tags, and refreshes the assets at least every 48 hours, including after the landing page changes.⁶

Some accounts now have these features without anyone switching them on. Google said it would start upgrading Search campaigns that used automatically created assets to AI Max in September 2026, with search term matching and text customisation on, and campaigns using campaign-level broad match with search term matching on. Dynamic Search Ads follow in February 2027, upgraded with all three features, final URL expansion included, and their existing URL controls carried over.⁷ An account nobody has reviewed since the summer may be running AI Max features that no one there chose.

Whether it pays is mixed. Smarter Ecommerce (smec) analysed more than 250 Search campaigns with AI Max switched on and found a median 13% uplift in conversion value, with those conversions costing a median 16% more and ROAS ranging from 42% above baseline to 35% below. The uplift figure does not account for cannibalisation across the account, and the analysis does not report final URL expansion separately.⁸

The controls in AI Max

• Switch off final URL expansion in campaign settings if every ad group already has a page built for it. It needs text customisation, so switching that off stops both.⁴
• Exclude URLs at campaign level, for pages that should never receive ad traffic such as policy pages, job listings or blog posts, and add URL inclusions at ad group level for pages final URL expansion has missed.⁴
• Set brand inclusions and exclusions to control which brands your ads are associated with or shown alongside.⁴
• Write text guidelines. In this beta you can add up to 25 term exclusions and 40 messaging restrictions per campaign, written as direct requirements, and existing generated assets that break them stop serving. They only work with text customisation on.⁹
• Preview the copy first. Since October 2026 Google generates up to 10 sample headlines and descriptions from a final URL, without you having to opt in.¹⁰
• Check tracking before switching on. Google advises confirming that a dynamic landing page from final URL expansion works with your tracking template.⁴

You are still responsible for the ad

In the UK the advertiser answers for what an ad says, whoever wrote it. The ASA's June 2026 guidance says an advertiser remains responsible for any AI output used in its ads, and cites a ruling in which an ad produced with Google's automated tools still left the advertiser primarily responsible for complying with the CAP Code.¹¹ Google's own page asks advertisers to keep their website content accurate, with titles, descriptions and meta tags up to date, because that is what the copy is built from.⁶ An expired offer in a meta description, or a claim on an old landing page that you would no longer make, can end up in an ad Google writes for you.

In organic results Google has long written part of what searchers see. Title links are generated automatically from sources including the title element, the main visible title, headings, og:title, other prominent text, anchor text and WebSite structured data, and Google says it cannot change title links by hand for individual sites. It is most likely to replace a title that is half-empty, out of date, inaccurate, repeated across a set of pages, or competing with several equally prominent headings.¹²

Rewrites are common. John McAlpin, an SEO consultant, compared title elements with the titles shown in results across thousands of keywords in a study published in April 2025 and found 76% had been changed. The most frequent change was removing the brand name, and unchanged titles were shorter, averaging 44 characters against 63 for changed ones.¹³ Google's documentation says it may drop the site name from a title link when the result already shows it, which probably accounts for some of that.¹² The study reports patterns without significance tests, so treat the figures as a rough guide.

Generative AI is the newer step. In March 2026 Google confirmed to The Verge that it was running a small and narrow test of AI-written headlines in ordinary results, covering more than news sites, after a similar experiment in Discover had become a feature within about a month. Reported rewrites changed what articles appeared to say and carried no label, and there is no way to opt out. Google said a broader launch might not use generative AI.¹⁴ I have found no report of the Search test expanding since. The practical advice on titles is in the content SEO guide.

Snippets work the same way as titles. Google builds them mainly from page content, uses the meta description only when it gives a more accurate description, and may show different snippets for different searches.¹⁵ AI Overviews and AI Mode go further and write the answer, linking to supporting pages that must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet.¹⁶

When the summary answers the question, fewer people click. In Pew Research Center's browsing data from 900 US adults in March 2025, people clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits to results pages with an AI summary against 15% without one, and clicked a link inside the summary on 1%.¹⁷ Ahrefs compared 300,000 keywords on desktop and found that an AI Overview correlated with a 58% lower click-through rate for the top-ranking page in December 2025.¹⁸

On the page itself the controls are nosnippet, max-snippet and, for a passage, data-nosnippet, with noindex taking a page out of Search altogether.¹⁶ Since 31 August 2026 every Search Console property also has a Search generative AI control under Settings. Excluding a site removes its links and content from AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover. Other sites still appear there, you lose the traffic and impressions those features would have sent, and the setting is not a ranking signal elsewhere in Search.¹⁹ It arrived after the CMA's publisher conduct requirement of 3 June 2026, which obliges Google to let publishers block use of their material for AI features such as AI Overviews in its UK search services, and to attribute content with clear links.²⁰

The last kind of rewriting happens after the click. Gemini in Chrome uses the content of the reader's current tab by default to give key takeaways and answer questions, can work across up to 10 open tabs on a computer, and can complete multi-step actions on the reader's behalf. Its help page describes settings for the reader and none for the website.²¹ The visit still happens, but the reader may leave with Gemini's summary of the page.

Each of these features works from what is on the page: the visible title and headings for title links,¹² page text for snippets,¹⁵ and titles, descriptions, meta tags and page copy for ad text.⁶ A page whose words are accurate and specific keeps its meaning better when someone else rewrites it.

• A title that matches the main heading and says what the page offers, short and free of boilerplate repeated across pages, with the brand at the start or end, separated by a hyphen, colon or pipe.¹²
• Key facts in visible text near the top: the price or price range, what is included, where you work and who it is for. A summary can only carry what it can read.
• Sentences that stay true on their own. “Fixed fee of £450 for an end of tenancy clean on a one-bedroom flat” survives being lifted into an ad or an answer. “See our pricing” does not. The price is invented.
• Nothing on the page you would not want in an ad. Old offers, unqualified superlatives and stale dates in meta descriptions are all raw material for text customisation.⁶
• `data-nosnippet` on a passage that should never be quoted, such as licensed content or a line that misleads when read alone.¹⁶ A site-wide exclusion from AI features costs every page its place there, so I would keep it for a specific reason such as paywalled or licensed content.
• For shops, product filters on category pages, one of the gaps the patent scores,¹ and a clear route to each product page. Feeds and markup are covered in the post on product data for AI shopping.

Measuring how often you appear in AI answers is a separate job, set out in how to measure visibility in AI search. For the patent itself there is nothing to switch off or track yet. The parts of Google rewriting your landing page that are live today mostly sit in Google Ads, and the 2026 upgrades to AI Max have switched some of them on by default. That is the first place I would look.