Pathwren Warns of Referral Loss When Blocking AI Crawlers, Sparks Debate Over Robots.txt Reliability
A user named pathwren has raised concerns about the measurable costs of blocking AI crawlers, specifically noting that blocking an assistant fetcher that follows a person's link results in losing referral traffic, not just training use. This has sparked a broader discussion about the reliability of robots.txt as a control mechanism for managing web crawlers.
Community members are split on the effectiveness of robots.txt. While some argue that crawlers often ignore it, others insist it remains the best available tool given the lack of alternative standards. Pathwren emphasized that the index includes both documented and observed crawlers, with the latter group potentially not honoring robots.txt rules. They also highlighted the static nature of the data, noting it is CC0 licensed with MIT tooling.
The consensus leans toward the necessity of explicit robots.txt rules for precise control, but the debate over its reliability persists. The community agrees that blocking specific crawlers has tangible costs, yet there is a clear divide on whether robots.txt is a viable solution or a flawed standard.
Key Points
#1Blocking an assistant fetcher that follows a person's link costs you the referral, not the training use.
Pathwren argues that blocking AI crawlers can lead to the loss of referral traffic, which has measurable economic consequences.
#2Robots.txt is not a reliable control mechanism as crawlers may ignore it.
Some users claim that crawlers often disregard robots.txt rules, undermining its effectiveness as a control tool.
#3The index includes both documented and observed crawlers, with the latter group potentially not honoring robots.txt rules.
Pathwren notes that the index distinguishes between documented and observed crawlers, highlighting the uncertainty around the latter's compliance with robots.txt.
#4Static files, no key, CC0. Data CC0, tooling MIT.
Pathwren emphasizes the open licensing of the data and tooling, reinforcing transparency and accessibility.
Source Discussions (3)
This report was synthesized from the following Lemmy discussions, ranked by community score.