The world of artificial intelligence is advancing at a staggering pace, with language models like GPT-4 already exhibiting near-human level communication abilities, and GPT-5 on the horizon promising even more jaw-dropping capabilities. As exciting as this rapid progress is, it brings with it some thorny questions for anyone who creates and manages content on the web.
Chief among these is the issue of AI web crawlers, like OpenAI‘s GPTBot, scraping massive troves of website data to use as training material for machine learning models. On one hand, this real-world data is crucial fuel for building powerful, knowledgeable AI systems that can understand and engage naturally with humans. On the other, many website owners are understandably protective of their content and uneasy with the idea of it being ingested and reproduced by AI without explicit permission.
As an SEO and AI expert, I know this is a complex issue with major implications for the future of search engines, digital marketing, and online business as a whole. In this post, I‘ll break down the key considerations and attempt to provide some guidance on whether blocking or collaborating with tools like GPTBot is the right move for your website.
The Staggering Scale of AI Training Data
First, it‘s important to understand just how much online content is being vacuumed up by AI web crawlers. A 2021 study by Diffbot found that:
- 29% of all web data is used for machine learning
- 11.5 billion web pages are crawled for AI training each month
- 1.3 billion images are scraped for computer vision models monthly
- 40 terabytes of public code are collected for AI training annually
And these numbers are only expected to balloon as AI technology grows more sophisticated and permeates more industries. IBM estimates that the global data sphere will grow to 163 zettabytes by 2025, a significant portion of which will come from publicly available web data.
Without this enormous corpus of human-generated examples to learn from, AI models would be far more limited in their knowledge and communication abilities. The diversity and scale of the web allows them to understand the nuances of language, engage with a broad range of topics, and stay current with our constantly-evolving world.
Legal Gray Areas and Ethical Questions
While this mass collection of web data has been pivotal for AI development, it exists in a legal and ethical gray area. In the U.S., courts have generally ruled web scraping to be permissible under the fair use doctrine, but there have been exceptions when the data involved contained creative works or trade secrets.
The question of whether training AI on copyrighted content violates intellectual property law is an active area of debate among legal scholars and the tech industry. Some have argued that non-commercial research and transformative use should allow for text and data mining, while others claim it should require licensing or explicit consent from content owners.
There are also broader concerns around data privacy, security and the unintended biases or misuse of AI models trained on unfiltered web content. In response, the AI community has proposed various frameworks to navigate these issues, such as:
- Opt-in approaches where website owners actively choose to allow crawling
- Standardized citations and links back to source content
- Restrictions on reproducing exact quotes or images without permission
- Filtering out personal information and explicit material
- Human oversight and auditing of training data and model outputs
So far, major players like OpenAI have erred on the side of broad data collection with some safe guards in place, but as regulations evolve, the rules of engagement for AI crawlers may grow more stringent.
The Compounding Impact on Search and SEO
The rise of AI-powered features in search engines is adding another wrinkle to this tangled web. With the integration of large language models into Google and Bing‘s ranking algorithms and generative AI chatbots, the symbiotic relationship between traditional web search and AI is growing deeper.
On one side, search engines are increasingly feeding their ranking models with user interaction data from AI features to identify the most relevant and authoritative content. The NY Times reports that Google‘s RankBrain AI now handles a majority of search queries, learning from user behavior to deliver better results.
At the same time, the AI models powering chat interfaces and "zero-click" search features are being trained on the high-quality content surfaced by search algorithms. This allows them to provide direct answers and summaries that can satisfy users‘ needs without a click-through to a website.
As this dynamic progresses, SEO professionals are grappling with how to optimize content for this new AI-first paradigm. Some key trends are emerging:
- Greater emphasis on E-A-T signals (expertise, authority, trustworthiness)
- Shift from keyword matching to semantic relevance and NLP
- Importance of clear page structure and hierarchy for entity recognition
- Prioritization of original, in-depth, multimedia content over thin articles
- Emphasis on clean site architecture and fast load times for crawlability
- Use of structured data to feed knowledge graphs and rich snippets
Investing in these areas can help make your content more discoverable and valuable to both search engine AI and the training data collectors that feed them.
To Block or Not to Block? An Industry-Specific Look
Now for the million-dollar question – should you be letting tools like GPTBot scrape your website? As with most complex issues, the answer is "it depends."
Your unique mix of content, audience, and business model should guide your decision on how to approach AI crawlers. Here are some high-level recommendations broken down by industry:
Publishers and Media Companies
News outlets, blogs, and other content-heavy sites will need to think carefully about the balance between AI-driven reach and control over their intellectual property. Allowing some crawling could boost traffic from chat interfaces and "newsworthy" ranking signals, but consider blocking your most unique or high-value content to preserve subscriptions and direct visits.
E-commerce and Retail
Online stores may want to allow product information to be indexed for AI-generated recommendations and competitive pricing analysis, but be cautious about proprietary data like supplier details, margins, and customer information. Use robots.txt to strategically allow and block specific page types.
B2B and SaaS Companies
Businesses selling complex products or software will want their authoritative guides and resources represented in relevant AI knowledge bases. Opening up crawling can also help with brand visibility in niche AI search verticals. Just keep an eye on lead conversion rates to make sure traffic isn‘t being siphoned off by AI-native content.
Healthcare and Financial Services
Any company dealing with sensitive personal data will rightfully be wary of releasing that information into the AI ecosystem. Focus on creating factual, publicly-available content around your core topics and services to establish thought leadership. Block access to any pages with user information or private communications.
Government and Educational Institutions
Public sector organizations have a duty to make accurate information widely accessible, and allowing AI models to learn from their expert content can help with that mission. Leverage structured data and semantic HTML to make content easily digestible for machines while keeping any gated or confidential pages off-limits.
Again, these are just general guidelines and each website will need to weigh the specific pros and cons for their situation. When in doubt, err on the side of caution and carefully control access to your most valuable data.
Adapting to an AI-Powered Web
Regardless of where you net out on granting AI crawler access, one thing is clear – the age of artificial intelligence is upon us and it will reshape the internet as we know it. Search engines, chatbots, and other AI-driven discovery tools will increasingly mediate the way people find and interact with web content.
As an SEO expert, my advice is to start optimizing your site for this new reality now before you get left behind. Structure your content to feed AI knowledge graphs, build topical authority in your niche, and provide unique value that can‘t be easily replicated by language models.
Most importantly, stay informed about the evolving legal and ethical standards around AI‘s use of web data. The decisions we make now about the relationship between AI and online content will have far-reaching implications.
While there may be short-term gains in web traffic by teaming up with AI, don‘t lose sight of the long-term importance of owning your audience and protecting your intellectual property. Finding the right balance will be key to thriving in an AI-powered world.
