Content-Signal directives are malformed
CONTENT-SIGNAL-001 · v1.0
What it detects
robots.txt declares Content-Signal directives, but one or more are malformed — an unrecognized value (only yes/no are valid) or a token without the name=value form.
Why it matters
A declared-but-broken signal is worse than an absent one: it reads as an explicit content-use preference while giving intermediaries and agents nothing they can actually apply, so the site is treated as undeclared anyway.
How to fix
Fix the malformed Content-Signal directive(s) in robots.txt. Each dimension takes only `yes` or `no`, in `name=value` form, comma-separated: Content-Signal: ai-train=no, search=yes, ai-input=yes Valid dimensions: `search` (search indexing), `ai-input` (retrieval/grounding at answer time), `ai-train` (model training). An unrecognized value or a token without `=` is ignored by consumers, leaving the site effectively undeclared. See contentsignals.org for the grammar.
Example
Content-Signal: ai-train=maybe, search=yes # 'maybe' is not a valid value
References
Last reviewed: 2026-09-01 · rule v1.0