NLWeb: Let People and AI Agents Ask Your Site Questions

NLWeb lets people, apps and AI agents ask your site questions in plain language, such as "vegetarian recipes with cinnamon" or "which plans include phone support?". The site answers with the content items that match, each described with the same structured data its page publishes, and, when AI is on, a short summary or an answer written from them. NLWeb is an open standard, so AI assistants and search tools that support it can use your site without any custom work.

Menu	Settings > Search > NLWeb
Permission	Ask the site questions with NLWeb (everyone has it at first); Manage the NLWeb settings (to change the settings)
Feature	NLWeb (it turns on Advanced SEO too)

Can't find it?

What you see depends on your role. If the menu, a button or a setting on this page is missing, ask your administrator to give you the permission listed above or to turn on the feature. Only administrators can turn features on and change site settings.

Before you start

NLWeb finds content with the site's search, so the site needs at least one of these:

• The Search feature, a search provider such as Lucene or Elasticsearch, and a search index of your content. The settings page warns you when no search provider is on.
• When AI is on, an AI data source of your content, which finds content by meaning rather than by words.

Choose what NLWeb answers from

1. Open Settings > Search > NLWeb.
2. Tick the Search indexes to answer from. The first one you tick is used unless a question names another one.
3. Optionally, tick the Content types answers can include. Leave them all unticked to include every content type.
4. Set the other fields.
5. Click Save.

Field	What it does
Search indexes	The indexes questions are answered from.
Content types	The content types answers can include. Answers only ever include published content items the person asking may see.
Number of results	The most results an answer has, from 1 to 50. 10 at first.
Default mode	What a question gets when it does not ask for something else: List (the results only), Summarize (the results and a summary of them) or Generate (an answer written from the results). Summaries and answers need AI.
Allow calls from other sites	When on, pages and assistants on other sites can ask questions from the browser. They always get the answers a visitor who is not signed in would get. On at first.
Accept the original protocol	When on, the site also answers apps that use the first version of NLWeb. On at first.

Use AI to improve the answers

When AI is on, the settings page has an Artificial intelligence section. Each question then costs one or more calls to the AI model.

Field	What it does
AI deployment	The AI model used. Default utility deployment uses the site's default small model.
Understand follow-up questions	When on, a follow-up such as "with cinnamon?", asked after "vegetarian muffins", is understood as "vegetarian muffins with cinnamon". On at first.
Rank the results	When on, the AI orders the results by how well they answer the question and drops the ones that do not. Off at first.
Allow summaries	When on, a question can ask for a summary of the results. On at first.
Allow answers	When on, a question can ask for an answer written only from the results, with links to them. On at first.
AI data source	Shown when AI data sources are on. A data source of your content that is also searched by meaning. The results of the search indexes and of the data source are merged.

Let AI assistants ask through MCP

AI assistants that connect to the site with MCP can use NLWeb through the Ask the Site (NLWeb) tool. Tick it in the tools list of the MCP Server settings, as you would any AI tool. You can also offer it to the site's own AI chat in an AI profile. The tool answers as the person or app that uses it.

Who can ask

Everyone can ask questions at first, including visitors who are not signed in, because the answers only hold content they could already see on the site. To limit NLWeb to some people, remove the Ask the site questions with NLWeb permission from the Anonymous and Authenticated roles in Security > Roles, and give it to the roles that may ask.

Tips

• What NLWeb returns about each content item is its structured data. To improve the answers, add the Schema.org part to your content types and describe them well; see Advanced SEO.
• When the search indexes change, for example when you add a content type to an index, rebuild the index so NLWeb finds the new content.