What is non-transferable content and why do you need it?

Why do you need non-transferable content?

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Short answer: Non-transferable content is the ultimate traffic driver, as it ensures that users must visit the website in order to consume the content. This not only helps to maximize traffic, but it also makes the content more future-proof, as it cannot be easily replicated or disseminated by AI or other robots. As a result, non-transferable content is less likely to be impacted by these technologies, allowing it to retain its value and effectiveness over time.

This means that AI, as we know it today, will not be able to transfer your content to users without them visiting your website.

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Explanation → Today, a significant amount of search queries are already being resolved without requiring users to visit the source of information (website). A perfect example of this is Google’s Featured Snippets, which display a concise answer at the top of SERP. When this happens, users are given the answer they need without having to click and visit the original source of the information. As a result, the website providing this information does not get any traffic. Here is how it looks:

Player	Investment	Return
Source (website)	Created content	Receives no return
Search Engine	No investment into content	Gets credit for satisfying the user intent
User	No investment into content	Search intent is satisfied

So, search engines partly take potential clicks away from websites already today.

But with the rapid growth of AI, it's highly likely that soon AI-powered technologies (AI chats, AI search engines, and AI voice assistants) will be able to take this to new levels.

We’d expect AI to be able to accurately transfer different types of information in a highly-detailed, helpful, and human-like way to users at some point in the future. This is great news for users, but not so good news for websites.

Why?

Because the amount of traffic websites receive in return for creating value (content) will continue to diminish at increasing rates.

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Investing in content that is likely to become obsolete soon is not a sustainable strategy in most cases.

In this case, non-transferable content would come into play - it would be hard or impossible to effectively consume this type of content without actually visiting the website.

If you want to see furniture store website examples, you must see them.

Showing the website examples in a featured snippet or other similar formats wouldn't be as effective as consuming it right at the source. Although this is probably doable with a carousel-like feature, but it’s not happening yet. Plus, even in case of carousel-like featured snippet users are more likely to go to a website for full experience unlike information based featured snippets where there is no much reason to visit the website once the information is provided.

Therefore, non-transferable content gives you an edge as it is much less likely to get taken and consumed without giving you the credit.

Non-transferable content will help to increase your website's traffic longevity since it is more difficult for AI and robots to access and use this type of material.

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Caveat: At this point, we don't know what AI will be able to do in the future, so it's impossible to say for certain that non-transferable content will always remain safe. But as of now, it is a good bet that this type of content will remain untouched for some time. So, if you are investing in content, consider focusing on creating non-transferable content and reap the benefits!

Types of non-transferable content

Here are the types of non-transferable content we discovered so far:

Content type	Format	Explanation
Showcase content	Text	A curated collection of products, designs, or solutions in a specific field, providing inspiration and ideas. Example → "Best Mobile App Designs"
Technical how-to content	Text, video, image	How to create a custom WordPress theme
Product reviews & comparisons	Text, video	-

What is non-transferable content and why do you need it?

Why do you need non-transferable content?

Types of non-transferable content

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