Robots.txt AI Bot Access
Control which AI crawlers can access your site.
What This Check Does
Your robots.txt file is the first thing AI crawlers read before indexing your content. If GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or PerplexityBot are blocked, your site will not appear in AI-generated answers. This check verifies that your robots.txt allows access for major AI user agents.
Why It Matters for AI Search
AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude rely on web crawlers to index content. Unlike traditional search engines, blocking AI bots means zero visibility in conversational search results. Many sites inadvertently block AI crawlers through overly restrictive robots.txt rules.
How We Evaluate
- 1Fetch and parse robots.txt from the root domain
- 2Check directives for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, and other AI user agents
- 3Verify that no blanket Disallow rules prevent AI crawler access
- 4Score based on the number of AI bots permitted vs blocked
Optimization Tips
- Explicitly allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot in your robots.txt
- Avoid overly broad Disallow: / rules that block all bots
- Review your robots.txt after CMS or plugin updates, as they may add restrictive rules
- Consider adding a Crawl-delay directive to manage AI crawler load without blocking them entirely
Test This Check on Your Site
Run a free GEO scan to see how your site performs on Robots.txt AI Bot Access.
Run Free Scan