# Content Signals Policy

Category: [AI Search & GEO](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/ai-search-geo/) › [Controls & opt-out](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/ai-search-geo/controls-opt-out/) · Also known as: Content-Signal, robots.txt

The **Content Signals Policy** is a robots.txt extension that lets a site state what crawlers may do with its content after fetching it. Cloudflare announced it on September 24, 2025.

## Which signals are there?

There are three signals, each set to `yes` or `no`:

- `search` covers building a search index and providing search results, for example returning links and short excerpts.
- `ai-input` covers inputting content into AI models, for example retrieval augmented generation, grounding or real-time use for generative AI search answers.
- `ai-train` covers training or fine-tuning AI models.

A missing signal means no preference is stated.

## How binding are they?

Cloudflare says the signals express preferences and are not technical countermeasures against scraping, and that some companies might ignore them. It recommends combining them with WAF rules and bot management for stronger enforcement. Whether specific search or AI companies evaluate the signals is not documented in the sources read.

For sites using Cloudflare's managed robots.txt, the blog post gives the defaults as `search=yes, ai-train=no`, while Cloudflare's docs list the default line as `search=yes, ai-train=no, use=reference`.

## Example

```
User-Agent: *
Content-Signal: search=yes, ai-train=no
Allow: /
```

The site allows classic search and declines training. It states nothing about `ai-input`.

## Related terms

- [robots.txt](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/robots-txt/index.md)
- [llms.txt](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/llms-txt/index.md)
- [llms-full.txt](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/llms-full-txt/index.md)

## More on the searchVIU blog

- [Cloudflare Fundamentals for SEO & GEO](https://www.searchviu.com/en/cloudflare-for-seo-and-geo-part-1/)

## Sources

- [Giving users choice with Cloudflare's new Content Signals Policy – Cloudflare Blog (24.09.2025)](https://blog.cloudflare.com/content-signals-policy/)
- [robots.txt and Content Signals – Cloudflare Docs](https://developers.cloudflare.com/bots/additional-configurations/managed-robots-txt/)

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Last updated: October 7, 2026
URL: https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/content-signals-policy/