---
title: "What Is Content-Signal? robots.txt for the AI Era"
description: "Content-Signal is an emerging robots.txt directive that separates permissions for search indexing, AI retrieval, and AI training — letting you be found and cited without feeding model training."
canonical: https://aiovsseo.com/glossary/content-signal.html
date: 2026-06-07
---
# What is Content-Signal?

Definition

Content-Signal is an emerging robots.txt directive that lets a site separate three permissions: search indexing, AI retrieval (RAG), and AI training. It gives publishers granular control over how AI may use their content.

**Content-Signal** is a directive added to `robots.txt` that expresses, in one line, how automated systems may use your content across three distinct purposes:

```
Content-Signal: search=yes, ai-input=yes, ai-train=no
```

- **search** — allow classic indexing (Google, Bing)
- **ai-input** — allow retrieval for live AI answers (RAG)
- **ai-train** — allow use of content for model training

## Recommended posture

For most sites, `search=yes, ai-input=yes, ai-train=no` is the pragmatic default: you want to be found and cited, without feeding proprietary training. It cleanly separates "use my content to answer now" from "use my content to build your model."

## Frequently asked questions

**What does ai-input mean in Content-Signal?**

ai-input governs retrieval-augmented generation: whether AI systems may fetch your page to ground a live answer for a user. Setting it to yes keeps you eligible to be cited in AI answers.

**Can Content-Signal stop AI training on my content?**

It signals your preference with ai-train=no, and compliant crawlers honor it. Like the rest of robots.txt, it is a declared policy rather than a hard technical block, so enforcement depends on the crawler.