AI Crawlers
Definition
AI crawlers are bots operated by AI companies (GPTBot from OpenAI, ClaudeBot from Anthropic, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, and others) that fetch web pages either to build training datasets or, increasingly, to retrieve fresh content in real time when answering a user's prompt through retrieval-augmented generation.
Each crawler identifies itself with a distinct user-agent string, and site owners can allow or block them individually in robots.txt, at a much finer level than the historic "allow all search engines" approach. Blocking a training-only crawler does not necessarily block the same company's citation-time crawler, since some providers now separate the two.
For a brand pursuing GEO, blocking AI crawlers by mistake, often a leftover rule from a security or CDN configuration, is one of the most common and costly technical errors, since it removes any chance of being cited even when the content itself is strong. Checking crawler access is a standard first step of an AI search visibility technical audit.
Confirming which AI crawlers can reach a site, and keeping that list current as new ones launch, is part of BotRank's technical audits, alongside checks for llms.txt and structured data.
Examples
An e-commerce site's CDN security rules block all bots with "bot" in their user-agent string by default, unintentionally blocking GPTBot and ClaudeBot along with malicious scrapers, until a technical audit catches the rule and a specific allow list is added.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which AI crawlers matter most today?
GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot, Google-Extended (Gemini and AI Overviews), and Applebot-Extended are the most commonly referenced, though the list keeps growing as new AI products launch.
How do I check if AI crawlers can access my site?
Review the live robots.txt file for each crawler's user-agent, and cross-check server logs for recent crawler visits; a technical audit tool can automate both checks.
Does allowing AI crawlers help SEO?
Not directly. Allowing AI crawlers affects AI visibility, not classic search rankings, but blocking them removes the possibility of being cited by AI answer engines.
Can I allow AI crawlers for citations but block them for training?
Some providers now offer separate user-agents for training versus retrieval, so this distinction is increasingly possible, but policies vary by provider and should be checked directly with each one's published documentation.
