Google’s Mueller Calls Markdown-For-Bots Idea ‘A Stupid Idea’

February 5, 2026

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Some developers have been experimenting with bot-specific Markdown delivery as a way to reduce token usage for AI crawlers.

Google Search Advocate John Mueller pushed back on the idea of serving raw Markdown files to LLM crawlers, raising technical concerns on Reddit and calling the concept “a stupid idea” on Bluesky.

What’s Happening

A developer posted on r/TechSEO, describing plans to use Next.js middleware to detect AI user agents such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot. When those bots hit a page, the middleware intercepts the request and serves a raw…

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Google’s Mueller Calls Markdown-For-Bots Idea ‘A Stupid Idea’

February 5, 2026

, Published By Search Engine Journal

Tech

Some developers have been experimenting with bot-specific Markdown delivery as a way to reduce token usage for AI crawlers.

Google Search Advocate John Mueller pushed back on the idea of serving raw Markdown files to LLM crawlers, raising technical concerns on Reddit and calling the concept “a stupid idea” on Bluesky.