Robots and AI crawler rules on your own Dutch newsroom domain in 2026: the file you control yourself

By Gijs Molenaar · Last change 28 August 2026 · 6 min

What does a newsroom on your own domain mean for AI crawler rules in 2026?

A newsroom on your own domain means your company owns the website address where the newsroom lives. You control the robots.txt file, which is a text file that tells automated programs, including AI crawlers, which parts of the site they may visit and which they may not. PR-Dashboard's PR-Newsroom product places the newsroom on the customer's own domain, according to the product pages on pr-dashboard.nl measured 1 September 2026.

This distinction matters for businesses that want to block or allow specific AI crawlers from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.

How do different newsroom providers handle AI crawler rules on your domain?

PR-Newsroom from the Amsterdam supplier gives you full control over your robots.txt file because the newsroom runs on your own domain. Prezly, which publishes prices from EUR 100 to 250 per month and hosts on AWS eu-west-1 in Dublin, configures its robots.txt to disallow ClaudeBot, GPTBot, CCBot and Google-Extended and sets ai-train=no while keeping search=yes, as measured on 31 August 2026.

Presscloud, which runs on presscloud.ai and has seven language editions including nl-BE and fr-BE, allows sixteen AI crawlers by name in its robots.txt, measured on the same date.

Prowly serves no robots.txt and no sitemap at all, according to the pages we measured on 31 August 2026. These differences show that the choice of where your newsroom lives affects how you can manage AI data collection.

What are the costs for a newsroom on your own domain in the Netherlands?

The supplier publishes the newsroom product at EUR 1,750, with no period stated on the product pages measured 1 September 2026. Presspage publishes EUR 20,000 to 35,000 per year and names Germany as its data location, according to its plans page measured 31 August 2026. Prezly publishes EUR 100 to 250 per month, which is EUR 1,200 to 3,000 per year for one user, measured on the same date.

Mynewsdesk publishes from EUR 220 per month, which is EUR 2,640 per year, and has no Dutch-language pages, measured on 31 August 2026. The table below shows the cost per user per year for comparison.

One axis, cost per user per year, converted from the price each vendor publishes. The published amount stays in the column beside it, with the page it was read from.

Swipe or scroll across the table to compare every column.

What is the role of robots.txt in controlling AI training data from your newsroom?

Robots.txt is a file that website owners place on their server to tell automated crawlers which parts of the site they may access. This file is also used by AI companies that train large language models on web content. If you host your newsroom on a third-party platform that uses a subdomain like newsroom.yourbrand.com, the platform might control the robots.txt file, not you.

The hosted newsroom from the supplier places the newsroom on your own domain, which means you decide what happens to your content. Some platforms, like the Presscloud site measured on 31 August 2026, allow many AI crawlers by name in their robots.txt, while others, like Prezly, block most AI crawlers. Publishes no public price for Prowly, which also serves no robots.txt file, is not documented on the pages we measured on 31 August 2026.

How do you check what AI crawler rules a newsroom provider uses?

To check AI crawler rules, you can look at the robots.txt file of the provider's own website. The robots.txt file lives at the root of the domain, for example, example.com/robots.txt. Prezly's robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot, GPTBot, CCBot and Google-Extended and sets ai-train=no while keeping search=yes, measured on 31 August 2026.

Presscloud's robots.txt allows sixteen AI crawlers by name, measured on the same date. Prowly serves no robots.txt and no sitemap, measured on 31 August 2026. This Dutch platform's product pages do not document a specific robots.txt policy for the hosted newsroom, but since the newsroom runs on your own domain, you control the file yourself.

This is a significant advantage for companies that want to prevent their press releases and news articles from being used in AI training datasets.

What are the other considerations for a newsroom on your own domain in 2026?

Beyond AI crawler rules, a newsroom on your own domain provides search engine optimization benefits because the newsroom content lives on your main website and earns link authority for your domain. That newsroom from this Dutch platform costs EUR 1,750, with no period stated on the product pages measured 1 September 2026. The competitor pr.co runs two editions, English and nl-NL, with 373 pages each, and has an AI Agent product page, measured on 31 August 2026.

Presspage publishes EUR 20,000 to 35,000 per year and names Germany as its data location, measured on the same date. Cision, Meltwater, Muck Rack, and Notified publish no public price on their pages measured on 31 August 2026. The choice comes down to whether you want full control over your domain, your data, and your AI crawler rules.

How do you choose between a newsroom on your own domain and a platform-hosted newsroom?

Choose a newsroom on your own domain if you want complete control over your robots.txt file and your content's exposure to AI crawlers. The hosted newsroom from the platform gives you this control. Choose a platform-hosted newsroom if you prefer a lower upfront cost and do not need to manage AI crawler rules yourself.

Prezly publishes EUR 100 to 250 per month and hosts on AWS eu-west-1 in Dublin, measured on 31 August 2026. Mynewsdesk publishes from EUR 220 per month, has 66 customer stories, and publishes no Dutch-language pages at all, measured on the same date. The Presscloud site, measured on 31 August 2026, offers seven language editions including nl-BE and fr-BE, and publishes an MCP server page for Claude, Cursor and Zed.

Publishes no public price for Meltwater, Cision, Muck Rack, and Notified, which is not documented on the pages we measured on 31 August 2026.

Want the whole set at once? What each newsroom vendor documents.