Cloudflare announced Content Signals Policy, a new addition to robots.txt that allows you to express your preferences for how your content can be used after it has been accessed. This aims to block Google from using your content in AI Overviews, but Google would have to comply, which they have not yet, for this to work.
Back in July, Cloudflare's CEO said they will get Google to comply to blocking just AI Overviews, and maybe this is their attempt?
Cloudflare says this will work to block your content from showing in AI Overviews, or being used in AI Overviews, but also allow your content to show in normal Google Search. The Information covered:
Cloudflare, which says it powers 20% of the world’s internet traffic, on Wednesday announced a new feature that it said will enable website owners to block Google’s AI Overviews search product without having to opt out of being included in Google search.In an interview, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said that Cloudflare is making it easier for website publishers to update their robots.txt file—essentially instructions that AI companies are expected to follow—to include language specifying for example that Google can use their content for search but not AI Overviews. That said, robots.txt instructions are not legally binding, as Cloudflare executives themselves have said.
Prince said that Cloudflare had given people at Google a heads up about the product, but that Google hasn’t said they would abide by the new instructions. Google or another AI company disregarding robots.txt could give publishers cause to sue, Prince said.
Here is a screenshot from the Cloudflare post:
Zones on a free plan can turn off the Content Signals Policy in the Security Settings section of the Cloudflare dashboard, as well as via the Overview section.
Glenn Gabe summed this up nicely:
Quick update about Cloudflare and AI Overview blocking -> I believe this is via Cloudflare's new Content Signals Policy where site owners can add directives to their robots.txt files about AI training versus just Search. Again, Google has not said they would follow this... So… pic.twitter.com/YqfGmLPRTB
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 24, 2025
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