This policy applies to the publicly available content on stackfloss.com (the "Site"), operated by StackFloss, Inc. ("StackFloss," "we," "us"). It explains how artificial intelligence (AI) and large language model (LLM) crawlers may and may not use that content. It's part of our Website Terms of Use.
The short version. AI crawlers may read our public pages, show them in results, quote and link to them when answering someone's question, and use them to train AI models. Anything behind a login, anything people type into our forms, and all patient data are off limits to every crawler.
1. Our position
We write our guides, calculator, and product pages to help independent dental practices find production that's already in their schedule. We want practice teams to find that help wherever they look, including AI assistants and AI-powered search. Being read, quoted, and learned from by AI tools matters more to us than holding our public content back, so we welcome AI crawlers.
Our pages include example figures and illustrative scenarios that only make sense in context. Whatever an AI tool does with our content, we ask that it keep that context (see section 5 and section 7).
2. Crawlers we allow
Every crawler that follows robots.txt and identifies itself honestly may access our public pages, including crawlers that collect content for AI model training, such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, and Applebot-Extended. These are some of the search and answer crawlers that read our pages most:
| Crawler | Operator | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
Googlebot | Google Search, including AI Overviews and AI Mode | |
Bingbot | Microsoft | Bing search and Copilot answers |
Applebot | Apple | Siri and Spotlight search results |
OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | Search results in ChatGPT |
ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | Fetching a page when a ChatGPT user asks about it |
Claude-SearchBot | Anthropic | Search results in Claude |
Claude-User | Anthropic | Fetching a page when a Claude user asks about it |
PerplexityBot | Perplexity | Perplexity search results |
Perplexity-User | Perplexity | Fetching a page when a Perplexity user asks about it |
DuckAssistBot | DuckDuckGo | DuckDuckGo AI-assisted answers |
MistralAI-User | Mistral AI | Fetching a page when a Le Chat user asks about it |
This list isn't exhaustive, and we may update it.
3. Crawlers we may limit
We don't block any crawler by name today. We may block or rate limit a crawler that ignores robots.txt, disguises its identity, or sends enough requests to slow the Site down for people (see section 9).
4. What's permitted
- Crawling and indexing any publicly accessible page on the Site.
- Showing our pages in search results, with titles, links, and short snippets.
- Fetching a page in real time to answer a specific person's question, and summarizing it or quoting short excerpts in that answer, with a link to the source page.
- Caching public pages, as needed to provide search results or answers.
- Using our public pages to train, fine-tune, or evaluate AI models.
5. What's not permitted
- Accessing anything behind a login, including the StackFloss product and any account or admin area.
- Collecting what people submit to us, including our contact, founding practice, and job application forms.
- Getting around access controls, including authentication, rate limits, or
robots.txtrules, or disguising a crawler's identity. - Republishing our content in substantial part or verbatim as your own pages, or selling it as a standalone product or dataset.
- Misrepresenting StackFloss, including presenting our example figures or illustrative scenarios as real results, or implying our endorsement of an AI product.
- Overloading the Site with request volumes that affect its performance for people.
6. How we signal this
We publish our rules in machine-readable form at stackfloss.com/robots.txt, including per-crawler rules and a Content Signals line for every crawler: search=yes (you may build a search index and show links and snippets), ai-input=yes (you may use a page to answer a person's question, with a link to it), and ai-train=yes (you may use our public content to train or fine-tune AI models). If our robots.txt and this policy ever seem to conflict, follow whichever is more restrictive.
7. Attribution
When our content meaningfully shapes an AI-generated answer, please name StackFloss and link to the page it came from, so practices can check the original and see the context around any numbers.
8. Patient data and privacy
This policy covers only public Site content. It never extends to patient data or protected health information, which is handled in the StackFloss product under HIPAA and a Business Associate Agreement with each practice and is never on the public Site; to anything submitted through our forms or by email; or to anything covered by our Privacy Policy. Figures in examples on our Site are illustrative and use no real patient data.
9. Enforcement
We may block, rate limit, or challenge any crawler that ignores robots.txt, misidentifies itself, or uses our content in a way this policy doesn't permit, and we reserve our other rights and remedies.
10. Changes and contact
We may update this policy as AI tools and standards change, and we'll revise the date below when we do. Operate a crawler and want to talk about access? Email hello@stackfloss.com.
Last updated: October 5, 2026.