Do your articles and images publish a machine-readable license stating how AI may use them?
Checks for a license URL on each piece of content so AI systems know what they are allowed to do with it.
What this signal tests
We look for a license property on your article, image, or other content blocks. It can appear in JSON-LD as a license URL inside an Article or CreativeWork object, or as a DC.rights or DC.license meta tag in the HTML head. The value must be a resolvable URL pointing to a license document, typically a Creative Commons page or your own terms page describing the permissions you grant.
Why it matters for your visibility in AI
AI training and retrieval pipelines increasingly look for explicit license signals before quoting, summarising, or reusing content. A clear license URL gives you direct control. You can choose Creative Commons BY to permit reuse with attribution, BY-SA to require share-alike, BY-NC to forbid commercial reuse, or your own terms page describing exactly what you allow. Without a license, AI systems must either guess (and they tend to guess permissively) or assume restrictive defaults (and skip your content entirely). The practical consequence is concrete. Publishers who declare permissive licenses see broader citation and attribution in AI answers, including direct links back to the source. Publishers who declare restrictive licenses see their content respected, with quoting limited to fair-use snippets. Publishers who declare nothing get unpredictable treatment across different AI vendors.
Pass criteria at a glance
| Criterion | Passes when |
|---|---|
| license property present and is resolvable URL. |
How we test it
We parse the JSON-LD blocks on your page looking for an Article, ImageObject, or other CreativeWork that includes a license field. If we do not find one there, we look in the HTML head for meta tags named DC.rights or DC.license. We also check for RDFa attributes carrying dcterms:license. We confirm that whatever value we find resolves as a valid URL. If a license is present in any of these forms, the signal passes.
Show technical detection method
Parse JSON-LD CreativeWork.license URL; or <meta name=DC.rights|DC.license>; or RDFa dcterms:license.
If your site fails: how to fix it
- Decide on the licensing posture you want. Common choices: CC-BY 4.0 (free reuse with attribution), CC-BY-NC 4.0 (non-commercial reuse only), CC-BY-SA 4.0 (share-alike), or your own custom terms page. Choose one as your default and consider per-article overrides for sensitive content.
- If your site uses JSON-LD already, add a `"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"` field to your Article and ImageObject blocks. This is the cleanest path and the one Schema.org recommends.
- If you do not use JSON-LD yet, add a meta tag to each page's head: `<meta name="DC.license" content="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">`. This is supported by older parsers and is a one-line change.
- If your CMS supports custom fields per post (WordPress, Ghost, Sanity, Contentful), wire the license into the template so each piece of content can override the site default when needed.
- Validate by viewing the page source and confirming the license URL is present in JSON-LD or meta. Then re-run the AI Ready Test scan.
Quick facts
| Maturity | ESTABLISHED |
|---|---|
| Weight | high |
| Category | Trust & Provenance |
Primary sources
Related signals
Frequently asked questions
Will I need IT help to fix this?
Probably yes, but only briefly. Adding the field is a template change in your CMS. If you use WordPress, plugins like Yoast or Rank Math expose schema fields you can edit. For custom builds, a developer adds one field to the Article template.
Will declaring a license stop AI systems from training on my content?
Mostly no, but it changes how compliant systems handle citation and reuse. Declaring CC-BY does not block training, only sets the terms. Declaring a restrictive custom license combined with the AI Preferences signal at /.well-known is the closer-to-effective path for blocking training.
Can different articles on my site carry different licenses?
Yes, and that is the recommended pattern for publishers. Use a permissive default and tag specific articles (paid content, investigative work, syndicated material) with a more restrictive license per-article through your CMS.
How long until the change takes effect?
Immediately on the next page load. There is no caching layer beyond your normal CDN. Once the license field is in the page source, AI crawlers will pick it up on their next visit. Standard recrawl latencies (hours to days) apply.
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