I've been thinking about how quickly high-quality web content is being turned into AI responses without proper attribution. For instance, how do websites like nytimes.com manage to get indexed by search engines while keeping their content behind a paywall? Are they using meta tags to provide short abstracts that some AI models rely on? Is it possible to set up a system where webmasters can allow indexing by standard search bots but still keep the content behind a CAPTCHA or similar security measure? Also, I understand that the companies behind search engines are also developing AI, but it seems like a search engine index would require less detailed information than AI does.
3 Answers
Great question! It makes me wonder how companies like the NYT manage to share some content with search engines while keeping most of it behind paywalls. I've heard that they might let a limited number of articles through for indexing, making it easier for search engines to work without giving everything away. Plus, distinguishing between human traffic and bot traffic is a significant challenge — it’s not just a straightforward block-and-allow situation.
To hide your content from AI while allowing search engines to index it, you'll need to specifically block the bots used by these models. For instance, OpenAI has documented their bots, and you'll want to research the bot lists from other AI entities as well. Just keep in mind, this assumes they all adhere to robots.txt rules, which is a big if.
As someone from a bot mitigation company, I suggest whitelisting your bots effectively. Deny access to all bots except those you approve. Many bots don't respect robots.txt, so using a service like ours can really help you control access to your site's data and prevent unwanted scraping without exposing your information.
What if they don't obey? Could we take legal action against them? It seems like it would be tough to prove without clear evidence of them using our content.