AI Usage Policy

The AI Usage Policy parameter checks whether your page declares an explicit policy for AI and bot access. friendly4AI reads the page HTML and passes the page when it finds at least one policy signal: a policy-like link or recognized inline policy phrasing. This is a binary Crawlability check. One qualifying signal earns a pass (100); none earns a fail (0).

What does this parameter measure?

friendly4AI looks in the page HTML for two kinds of signal:

• Policy-like links — href values containing paths such as /ai-policy, /ai-usage, /ai-terms, /ai-guidelines, /ai-access, /legal/ai, /bot-policy, /crawler-policy, /.well-known/ai-usage-policy, /ai.txt, or /llms.txt.
• Inline policy phrasing — text such as AI usage policy, AI policy, policy for AI, AI crawling policy, or tdm-reservation.

Either one tells the scanner the page declares an AI stance. Articles that merely talk about AI would otherwise trip a false positive, so the scanner ignores links marked rel="license" and links under editorial sections such as /news/ or /technology/ai.

Why does an AI usage policy matter for AI-readiness?

An explicit AI usage policy tells AI systems, and the operators behind them, that you have thought about automated access. A dedicated policy page, or a /.well-known/ai-usage-policy, ai.txt, or llms.txt document, spells out how your content may be used. That removes ambiguity, builds trust, and gives AI engines a clearer basis for deciding how to treat and cite your content. It works alongside related controls: AI crawler access control, AI opt-out signals, and robots.txt accessibility.

How is this parameter scored?

Under the v4.5 methodology, this Crawlability parameter is binary, with no partial tier. friendly4AI checks the page HTML for at least one policy signal — a matching policy-like URL or one of the recognized policy phrases:

• Pass (100) — at least one policy signal is present.
• Fail (0) — no policy link or policy phrasing is found.

A single qualifying signal flips the result from fail to pass. Editorial-section links and rel="license" links are filtered out first, so a news article about AI never counts as a policy.

How do you fix common issues?

• Publish a dedicated policy page and link it from your footer using a recognized path such as /ai-policy, /ai-usage, or /ai-terms.
• Add a machine-readable declaration at /.well-known/ai-usage-policy, /ai.txt, or /llms.txt, then link it from the homepage.
• Use clear policy phrasing on the page, such as a heading or link reading "AI usage policy", so the inline keyword check matches.
• Keep the policy link out of editorial article paths. Link it from site chrome (footer or header), not from a /news/ or /technology/ai story.
• Re-scan after publishing to confirm the policy link or phrasing is detected.