Not every bot is the enemy

Blocking every bot feels safe. It rarely pays off. Plus: newsroom cuts top 2,300, Meta’s crawler math, and Germany’s new AI rules.

Not every bot hitting your server is a threat. This week’s column makes the case for sorting AI crawlers by function instead of blocking them all on reflex, since some of the ones publishers kick out first are quietly building the authority that gets a source cited in AI answers.

Also in this issue: The AI effect on the media ecosystem is getting real. G…