Google Will Support a Shared Robots.txt Control for AI Training in 2027
Google plans to support a shared robots.txt policy token that lets a website state its AI-training preference to multiple AI providers at once, according to an October 30, 2026 Search Central post by John Mueller. The control builds on work in the IETF AIPREF working group, and Google says it aims to support it along with other AI providers in 2027. Company-specific controls such as Google-Extended keep working. If a site opts out of training with the new token and does not name Google-Extended, Google will treat Google-Extended as disallowed. The post does not mention AI Overviews, AI Mode or Search ranking; it says sites that allow Google-Extended are eligible to appear and earn clicks via grounding in Gemini Apps.
Health systems and practice groups that block AI crawlers to protect content can cut themselves out of AI answers by accident. A shared control makes the training decision clearer, but it does not settle whether you appear in Google’s AI features.
Use it for: reviewing robots.txt with IT or your web vendor before 2027, so training and visibility decisions are made on purpose rather than by default.
Watch out for: there is no date beyond 2027 and no named partners besides Google. The post covers training, not search visibility, so do not read it as a way to control AI Overviews.
Try this: open robots.txt on each of your domains, list every AI user agent it blocks (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, Google-Extended), and confirm each block reflects a decision someone made. The healthcare SEO and AI search hub summarizes Google’s official guidance.
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Does blocking AI training remove a site from Google AI Overviews?
Google’s post does not say so. It addresses AI-training preferences and notes that Google-Extended governs eligibility for grounding in Gemini Apps, but it does not mention AI Overviews, AI Mode or Search ranking. Treat training controls and search visibility as separate decisions.