Are content licensing deals with OpenAI/Google actually helping publishers get cited? Seeing mixed results

You’re identifying a real two-tier system that’s emerging.

The stark reality:

Publishers WITH licensing deals:

• Guaranteed citation in AI responses
• Direct revenue from content usage
• Content included in real-time retrieval pipelines

Publishers WITHOUT deals:

• Citation at AI’s discretion (often low)
• No compensation for training data usage
• Content may age out of AI training

The numbers are concerning:

• 60% of major news sites now block AI crawlers
• 93% of AI searches end without a click to sources
• Only 7.2% of domains appear in both Google AI Overviews AND LLM results

The emerging middle ground:

New licensing marketplaces might help:

• RSL (Real Simple Licensing) - collective bargaining framework
• Microsoft Publisher Content Marketplace - two-sided marketplace
• Cloudflare Pay Per Crawl - micropayments for crawling

But these are early stage and unproven.

I can share perspective from inside a licensed publisher (can’t name which).

The licensed experience:

Our deal has significantly increased AI citations. We see:

• 3-4x more citations than before the deal
• Real-time content inclusion (breaking news appears quickly)
• Preferential positioning in AI responses

But it’s not all roses:

• Traffic from AI citations is still minimal (zero-click problem)
• The revenue is nice but doesn’t offset traffic loss
• We’re essentially subsidizing AI at a discount

The honest take:

Licensing deals help visibility but don’t solve the fundamental economics. AI consumes content, synthesizes answers, and users don’t click through. The $50M/year deals help the P&L but don’t replace the ad revenue from actual visits.

The legal landscape is shifting in publishers’ favor.

Recent developments:

1. Anthropic Settlement (Sept 2025): $1.5B settlement established $3,000-per-work baseline for copyright valuation. This gives publishers concrete negotiating leverage.

2. Penske vs Google: First major publisher to sue Google over AI Overviews. Tests whether AI synthesis itself infringes copyright.

3. Encyclopedia Britannica vs Perplexity: Tests unlawful copying of reference material.

What this means:

AI companies face existential legal risk from unlicensed content. This pressure will likely force more deals and better terms for publishers.

My advice:

Don’t rush to block crawlers OR accept bad deals. The market is moving toward publishers. Wait for better terms unless you’re desperate.

Perplexity seems different from the others. Their revenue sharing model is more accessible to smaller publishers.

How Perplexity works:

• $42.5M allocated for revenue sharing
• 80% goes directly to publishers
• Payment triggered when content appears in responses
• No upfront negotiation required

Our experience (small publisher):

We signed up for Perplexity’s program 4 months ago. Results:

• ~200 citations per month
• ~$1,200/month in revenue sharing
• Not life-changing but it’s something

The catch:

Perplexity has smaller market share than ChatGPT or Google. So even good revenue sharing is limited by their reach.

Still, for small publishers, Perplexity’s model seems fairer than the all-or-nothing deals with OpenAI/Google.

I’ve been covering this beat extensively. Some context:

The recency bias is real:

Research shows 65% of AI citations come from content published within the last year. This means:

• Your archive has limited AI value
• Fresh content matters more
• Continuous publishing is required to maintain visibility

The Wikipedia exception:

Wikipedia gets cited in 47.9% of ChatGPT’s top sources because it’s freely licensed (CC BY-SA 3.0). The lesson: licensing terms matter for AI visibility.

The Reddit example:

Reddit’s $60M/year deal with Google shows the value of community content. Their WebText2 dataset gets 5x weighting in GPT training.

Takeaway:

If you can’t negotiate a major deal, focus on:

1. Fresh, continuous content
2. Community/discussion content
3. Unique original research
4. Consider RSL/marketplace models

We’re a niche B2B publisher. Different considerations than news.

Our approach:

1. NOT blocking crawlers - our content is specialized enough that AI citation is valuable for authority
2. Tracking citations carefully - using Am I Cited to understand our AI footprint
3. Creating comparison/evergreen content - these perform better than news for AI citations
4. Building community - forums and discussions generate community-style citations

Results:

We’re not getting licensing revenue, but AI citations drive significant brand authority. Being cited as an expert source in our niche is worth more than the content licensing revenue would be.

For niche publishers:

The calculus is different. Authority from citations may be more valuable than licensing revenue, especially if you monetize through services/subscriptions rather than ads.

I’m on the other side of this debate. We block AI crawlers completely.

Our reasoning:

1. AI citation doesn’t drive meaningful traffic
2. Our content trains systems we don’t benefit from
3. The 93% zero-click rate makes citations worthless
4. We’d rather optimize for humans who actually visit

The results:

Honestly? Traffic hasn’t changed significantly. The AI traffic we “lost” wasn’t converting anyway.

We’ve refocused on:

• Email subscribers (owned audience)
• Direct traffic building
• SEO for actual Google search (not AI Overviews)

The philosophical point:

Maybe not every content strategy needs AI visibility. If AI citations don’t drive value, why optimize for them?

This thread shows there’s no universal answer. My takeaways:

For mass media publishers:

• Licensing deals matter but don’t solve economics
• Legal landscape is shifting in publishers’ favor
• Wait for better terms if you can

For niche/B2B publishers:

• Authority value may exceed licensing value
• Community content punches above its weight
• Track citations to understand real impact

For all publishers:

• Marketplaces (RSL, Microsoft) are emerging options
• Perplexity’s revenue sharing is more accessible
• The 93% zero-click problem is real for everyone

Our decision:

We’re NOT blocking crawlers yet. We’re:

1. Joining RSL collective to watch for better terms
2. Signing up for Perplexity revenue sharing
3. Tracking citations with Am I Cited
4. Building more community/comparison content

The market is evolving. Better to stay in the game and monitor than to block and become invisible.