Terms of Content Use FAQs
We know you may have questions about the new Terms of Content Use and what they mean for your business. Here are answers to help you understand why we’re adding them, how they work, and how they protect your rights. You can also read more on the Blog.
What are Terms of Content Use?
Terms of Content Use are legal statements on your site that clearly say your content belongs to you and set rules for how others can use it. They tell platforms, AI companies, and anyone else that they can’t copy, republish, or scrape your content without your permission.
Why is Raptive adding Terms of Content to my site?
Platforms are increasingly testing features that show full content directly in search results. This means readers can get the value of your content without ever clicking to your site, hurting your traffic, ad revenue, and ability to connect with your audience. These terms establish clear legal protections to help prevent that.
Why is it opt-out and not opt-in?
We’re making this opt-out because it’s designed to protect you by default. Nearly all major publishers already include similar legal language to safeguard their content, but independent creators often don’t have the legal resources to implement it themselves, leaving their content vulnerable to unauthorized use.
By rolling it out automatically, we’re ensuring all Raptive creators have these protections in place without requiring extra work. Of course, if you prefer not to include it, you can opt out anytime at the bottom of your Ad Preferences page in the Raptive dashboard.
What do the Terms of Content Use do?
They establish your content as proprietary property, signal to third parties not to copy, reproduce, or republish it without your permission, and prevent automated scraping tools from extracting and republishing your content.
Does this impact my SEO or how Google indexes my site?
No. The terms are written to be neutral toward AI companies and Google, and include carve-outs allowing Google to continue indexing your site for beneficial features like star ratings and schema data. They focus only on preventing replication-style features that show your full content without sending readers to you.
Do any other major publishers have this?
Yes. Nearly all major publishers include similar language in their terms and conditions.
Can I see the exact language?
Yes. This is the language from our lawyers:
Your Use of Our Content. The content we make available on this website [and through our other channels] (the “Service”) was created, developed, compiled, prepared, revised, selected, and/or arranged by us, using our own methods and judgment, and through the expenditure of substantial time and effort. This Service and the content we make available are proprietary, and are protected by these Terms of Service (which is a contract between us and you), copyright laws, and other intellectual property laws and treaties. This Service is also protected as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and treaties. We provide it for your personal, non-commercial use only.
You may not use, and may not authorize any third party to use, this Service or any content we make available on this Service in any manner that (i) is a source of or substitute for the Service or the content; (ii) affects our ability to earn money in connection with the Service or the content; or (iii) competes with the Service we provide. These restrictions apply to any robot, spider, scraper, web crawler, or other automated means or any similar manual process, or any software used to access the Service. You further agree not to violate the restrictions in any robot exclusion headers of this Service, if any, or bypass or circumvent other measures employed to prevent or limit access to the Service by automated means.
What does it look like on a site?
A small, clickable link down at the footer. When someone clicks on the link, it will pop up with the language like this:
Do I need to do anything?
No action is required if you want these protections on your site. We’ll automatically add a link to your Terms of Content Use in your site footer via our ad code after an initial notice period. If you prefer not to include it, you can opt out anytime in your Ad Preferences in the Raptive dashboard.
What if I opt out?
If you opt out, the terms will not appear on your site footer, and your site will not be included in the legal notice Raptive sends to platforms about these new protections.
How does this help protect my content legally?
By having these terms publicly posted on your site, we create “actual legal notice,” which is an important requirement if we ever need to enforce your rights in court.
What if platforms ignore these terms?
If a platform continues to copy and republish your content without permission, having these terms in place gives creators and Raptive a stronger legal position to challenge that behavior.
Does this block AI crawlers?
No, you would need to take additional steps to block crawlers on your site. Read more on Blocking AI with Cloudflare.
Can I customize the language and add it somewhere else?
You’re welcome to do whatever you want! If you prefer to customize the language, we recommend that you opt out in the dashboard and put it wherever you’d like so it doesn't show up in both places.