GoKawiil
Tech News
Owners of small business websites say they are being hit with heavy traffic from Meta's AI web crawlers, straining servers and disrupting normal operations. The complaints follow Meta's announcement of upcoming terms changes that would expand how AI crawlers can access data from business accounts.
A 2026 study sampled 7,040 U.S. local-business website listings from the Curlie directory, checking each for seven security headers via a single-request scan. After deduplicating to one HTTP-200 response per unique domain (4,688 sites), 49.7% met none of the seven header criteria.
A 25-year veteran web builder and current CEO of Builderall argues that having a website used to signal professionalism and drive traffic, but that advantage has vanished now that AI can generate a polished site in minutes. He cites Netcraft's March 2026 survey showing roughly 1.43 billion websites exist, yet only about 208 million show signs of active upkeep, meaning most are abandoned or dormant.