Who this is for

  • Finance brokers
  • Legal firms
  • Accounting firms
  • Consultants
  • Trades
  • Clinics

The stories

Your website is getting an AI off switch. Flip it and Gemini could stop quoting you

Announced Friday 30 October 2026; takes effect from the coming months (OpenAI), 1 February 2027 (Microsoft) and 2027 (Google)

Three AI giants just agreed on an off switch for your website. OpenAI, Google and Microsoft will all read one shared line that says "don't train AI on my content". Sounds like a win. Here's the catch.

Google says sites that allow Google-Extended, its AI training robot, "are eligible to appear in responses and receive clicks via grounding in Gemini Apps". Grounding means Gemini quoting your page live when someone asks a question. Google will treat the shared line as a block on that robot, so flip it and you could drop out of those answers.

Microsoft is just as blunt: blocking grounding "will significantly reduce your content's visibility in AI-generated experiences".

The line goes in robots.txt, the small file that tells robots what they can use on your site: "User-Agent: __usage_ai-training", then "Disallow: /" underneath. Swap the slash for a folder, like /guides/, and it covers just that folder.

Claude's $200 plan just scrapped the five-hour cut-off. The weekly one still bites

Email to subscribers and Help Centre update, Saturday 31 October 2026

Claude's top plan no longer makes you stop after five hours. Anthropic emailed subscribers on Saturday: "We've removed the 5-hour limit from your Ultra (formerly Max 20x) plan."

Same price, $200 a month on the web, with 10 times the Pro plan's usage every week. Existing Max 20x subscribers move across automatically.

To check you've got it, open Settings, then Usage. No Current session bar means the limit has gone for you. It only lifts for verified accounts, and Anthropic does the verifying from your account and payment history.

The catch: weekly limits "still apply", including a separate one for Fable models.

Clear takeaways

  • One shared line will soon tell OpenAI, Google and Microsoft not to train AI on your site. Microsoft starts on 1 February 2027.
  • Training and AI answers are different things. Block the wrong one and Gemini could stop quoting you to the next customer who asks.
  • Claude Ultra has no five-hour stop now, but the weekly cap still bites. Spread big jobs across the week.

Do this now

  1. Type your web address plus /robots.txt into a browser, like yourfirm.co.uk/robots.txt. Look for Google-Extended, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User or Bingbot with "Disallow" under them. Screenshot what you find.
  2. If your website exists to win enquiries, don't block the robots that let AI answer questions about you (Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User for Anthropic, Bingbot for Copilot), and think twice before a blanket training opt-out.
  3. If you sell what you publish, like paid guides, courses or templates, ask your web person to add the two shared lines for that folder.
  4. Ask your web person one question: "Does our site use NoArchive or NoCache tags?" If the answer's yes, put 1 March 2027 in the diary.
  5. On Claude Ultra? Open Settings, then Usage, check the Current session bar has gone, then run the big job you've been splitting across days in one go.

Sources