AI Opt-Out Signals

AI Opt-Out Signals is an informational check that detects whether your site explicitly tells AI systems to stay away. friendly4AI looks in three places for an opt-out directive: the X-Robots-Tag response header and the <meta name="robots"> tag for noai or noimageai, plus robots.txt for site-wide AI exclusion. The result is binary — opt-out detected or not — and it does not affect your AI-Readiness Score.

What does this parameter check?

friendly4AI flags an AI opt-out when any one of these signals shows up:

• noai or noimageai in the X-Robots-Tag response header or the page's <meta name="robots"> tag.
• Five or more tracked AI crawlers blocked by Disallow: / in robots.txt — bots such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, and Bytespider.
• A wildcard Disallow: / under User-agent: *, which blocks every crawler.

Why does it matter for AI-readiness?

This parameter is informational and stays out of the AI-Readiness Score — it reports a signal but never raises or lowers your number. Opting out of AI usage is a legitimate business choice, and media, legal, and enterprise sites make it all the time. So friendly4AI surfaces the signal instead of penalizing it.

What this check really tells you is intent. When a site deliberately carries noai or blocks the major AI crawlers, a low Crawlability result is the policy working, not a misconfiguration to chase down. Read this parameter next to the scored access checks to decide whether restricted AI access is on purpose.

How is it scored?

Under the v4.5 methodology this is a binary, informational check that does not contribute to the numeric score:

• No opt-out detected (pass): none of the three conditions above holds — AI access is open.
• Opt-out detected (fail): at least one condition holds — noai/noimageai is present, five or more tracked AI crawlers are blocked by Disallow: /, or a wildcard Disallow: / blocks User-agent: *.

There is no partial tier. The only question is whether at least one opt-out condition is met, and that single answer flips the result from no-opt-out to opt-out-detected. Since the parameter sits outside scoring, neither outcome moves your AI-Readiness Score.

How do you fix common issues?

• If a low access score surprises you, look for a stray noai or noimageai in your X-Robots-Tag header or meta robots tag and remove it when you want AI access.
• Check robots.txt for a wildcard Disallow: /, or for per-bot Disallow: / rules spread across many AI crawlers. Both trip the opt-out signal.
• When the opt-out is intentional, leave it alone. This parameter confirms your restrictions are working as designed.
• Pair this signal with AI Crawler Access Control and robots.txt Accessibility to see exactly which engines your policy reaches.
• Re-scan after you edit headers or robots.txt to confirm the opt-out state matches what you intended.