The question this layer is asking
When AI takes your content to train on and to generate answers, can you set conditions — or even charge? Since 2025 a whole layer of standards has competed to answer this. The main players:
| Approach | Role | Status |
|---|---|---|
| RSL 1.0 | License terms embedded in robots.txt + pay-per-crawl/inference | Self-declared standard, 1500+ brands; ~zero AI compliance |
| Cloudflare Content Signals | robots.txt flags for search/ai-input/ai-train use |
Product, 3.8M domains; advisory (voluntary) |
| Cloudflare Pay-Per-Crawl | Charge AI crawlers per request via HTTP 402 | Product, partial beta |
| TollBit / ProRata | Two-sided paid marketplaces with real money flowing | Production, still small |
| IAB CoMP | A commercial agreement before crawling | 2026/3 draft, not finalized |
The reality: many approaches, little compliance
The problem here isn’t a lack of options — it’s that they coexist, compete, and AI-side compliance is near zero. RSL calls itself a standard but AI vendors ignore it; Content Signals is advisory; the real money flows through marketplaces like TollBit and ProRata, but at modest scale. None is a finalized, enforceable standard.
For small businesses: the point isn’t charging, it’s not blocking the wrong thing
The players actually getting paid by AI are Reddit- and major-media-scale. For the vast majority of sites, what this layer demands now isn’t “how do I charge” but “while setting licensing/blocking, don’t accidentally block yourself out of AI answers” (see Block the wrong bot).
So should you act
Track it, don’t invest. Once the layer consolidates and AI actually starts complying, then talk monetization. For now, energy spent on the site-health that gets you cited beats energy spent on blocking and charging.
ok but how is this any different from seo with extra steps? feels like every few years someone renames the same thing
Fair pushback 😅 It's not a replacement — clean site + good content is still the foundation, GEO just sits on top of it. The 'extra steps' are mostly about being the source an answer is built from, not one of ten blue links it ignores. Not enemies, same foundation.
good stuff. i run a small agency and we've been quietly doing this kind of work for clients for about a year, happy to compare notes with anyone here who's experimenting, no pitch just nerding out
wait so do i need to pay for chatgpt to get my shop to show up in it?? sorry if dumb question
not a dumb q — no, paying for chatgpt does nothing for that. it's about your site/info being clear and trustworthy enough that the model picks you when someone asks. paying just gets YOU the fancier model, doesn't make it mention you.
doesnt work for me
ok but how is this any different from seo with extra steps? feels like every few years someone renames the same thing and sells it back to us
the bit about being the source the model summarizes instead of one of ten links it ignores actually reframed it for me. thanks
wait so do i need to pay for chatgpt to get my shop to show up in it?? sorry if dumb question im not techy, i just run a small bakery and my niece said i should look into this
this is the third article ive read this week saying basically the same stuff and none of them tell you what to actually DO on monday morning