Digital briefing, October 31: Shared robots.txt signal, Reddit's traffic loss, Shopify's agent commission
Today's agenda: a shared robots.txt signal for AI training permissions, Reddit's search traffic loss, and Shopify's commission for AI shopping agents.
- AI
OpenAI and Google to back a single robots.txt signal for sites' AI training preferences #
On October 30, Google announced it will support a shared 'policy token' signal via robots.txt, building on work from the IETF's AIPREF working group. OpenAI said it will follow this shared signal as well. Google said it's aiming to roll out this support in 2027.
What it means for your business: Site owners will be able to grant or withhold AI training permission with a single signal instead of configuring settings separately for every AI company, cutting down on technical overhead.Source: Google Search Central — Supporting a shared AI training control for websites · OpenAI — Making it easier for websites to express AI training preferences
- Search
Reddit says Google's AI search features are cutting traffic to its site #
On the investor call, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said that in October, search-referred traffic lost an average of more than 1 million referrals per week. Huffman attributed most of this to Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode features. Reddit plans to test a version open only to logged-in users in select markets outside the US.
What it means for your business: Search engines' AI summaries can reduce click-throughs to sites, so businesses need to keep a close eye on their own organic traffic trends.Source: Search Engine Journal — Reddit CEO Says Google’s AI Mode ‘Does Not Drive Traffic’ via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern · Search Engine Roundtable — Daily Search Forum Recap: October 30, 2026
- E-commerce
Shopify starts paying commissions to companies building AI shopping assistants #
As of October 27, 2026, Shopify pays a 0.3% commission to the company behind an AI shopping agent for every sale made from the 'promoted' products that agent recommends. Stores can offer an additional commission through Shop Campaigns, but this extra commission is only paid out if the sale is completed through the Shop app or shop.com. Shopify is currently running this as an invite-only preview, limited to the US.
What it means for your business: Store owners should know that the products AI agents recommend may not always serve the buyer's best interest, since the commission structure can shape the recommendation.