What happened
Google said on Oct 30 it plans to support one shared rule in robots.txt that tells many AI companies at once if they may train on your site. Google aims to start in 2027, and its own Google-Extended setting still works. OpenAI said the same day it plans to honor the rule too.
Source: Google Search Central Blog, 2026-10-30. This is our short summary. Read the source for the full story.
How a contractor could use it
You do not need to do anything today. Ask your web person what your robots.txt file says now. When the rule goes live, decide on purpose if AI may train on your pages. Google says sites that allow its training setting can show up in Gemini answers, so think before you block.
Added 2026-10-31. Check any tool's price and terms on its own site before you use it.
Try this prompt
Copy it into Grok Bot, Claude or ChatGPT. Fill in the parts in [brackets].
Here is my website's robots.txt file: [paste]. Explain in plain words what it lets search engines and AI tools do. Then list 3 questions I should ask my web person before I change anything.
Want it set up for you? We can do it.
More SEO ideas.
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Real contractor story
Use AI to brainstorm blog posts, then add your own voice
A working contractor on X said an SEO blog he read sounded just like ChatGPT. His advice: use AI to brainstorm, then add your own voice and real job stories, and check the facts.
View prompt
I am a [trade] in [city]. Give me 10 blog topics my customers really ask about. For each one, give a 5 point outline. Leave a spot in each outline that says [ADD MY REAL JOB STORY].
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Idea for contractors
Stay in search but say no to AI training
Cloudflare announced a Disallow AI Training setting. It says your site can stay in search while asking that same crawler not to train AI on your content, and that Apple, Google and Microsoft honor or will honor it.
View prompt
Explain in plain words the pros and cons for a small [trade] business of letting AI tools train on our website. Then give me 3 questions to ask my web person.