AI Crawler Access
Whether the robots.txt file on a domain permits AI crawlers — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended — to fetch and index content from the site.
KEY FACTS
- —AI crawlers respect the User-agent directives in robots.txt
- —Many sites block AI crawlers accidentally via blanket Disallow rules meant for scrapers
- —A blocked AI crawler results in zero AI visibility regardless of other optimizations
- —AI crawler access is worth 25 out of 100 points in Zygur's AI visibility scoring
- —Fix is simple: add explicit User-agent + Allow: / rules for each AI crawler
- —Check your site free at zygur.com/tools/robots-checker
FREQUENTLY ASKED
How do I check if my site blocks AI crawlers?
Use the free Robots.txt AI Checker at zygur.com/tools/robots-checker. Enter your domain and see which of GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and Google-Extended are allowed or blocked.
What happens if I block GPTBot?
If GPTBot is blocked, ChatGPT cannot crawl your site. Your business won't appear in ChatGPT recommendations that require current or site-specific knowledge.
How do I allow AI crawlers in robots.txt?
Add these lines before any wildcard Disallow rules: User-agent: GPTBot Allow: / User-agent: ClaudeBot Allow: /
RELATED TERMS
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See exactly how you score on ai crawler access and four other AI visibility factors. Average score is 23/100.
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