What Are AI Crawlers?
AI crawlers are automated bots that scan websites to gather information for AI language models and AI-powered search engines. Just like Googlebot crawls the web to index pages for Google Search, AI crawlers fetch content to train models, power real-time search, and generate AI responses.
When someone asks ChatGPT about your business, the answer quality depends partly on whether GPTBot was able to crawl your website. If you’ve blocked it — intentionally or not — the AI might have outdated or inaccurate information about you.
The 11 Major AI Crawlers
Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of every AI crawler you should know about:
1. GPTBot (OpenAI)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | GPTBot |
| Company | OpenAI |
| Purpose | Training data + real-time browsing for ChatGPT |
| Full UA string | Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (compatible; GPTBot/1.0; +https://openai.com/gptbot) |
GPTBot is arguably the most important AI crawler. It powers ChatGPT’s knowledge and its browsing feature. Blocking GPTBot means ChatGPT may not have accurate, up-to-date information about your business.
2. ClaudeBot (Anthropic)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | ClaudeBot |
| Company | Anthropic |
| Purpose | Content access for Claude AI |
| Full UA string | ClaudeBot/1.0 (https://www.anthropic.com) |
ClaudeBot fetches content for Anthropic’s Claude, one of the most capable AI assistants. Claude is increasingly used in business contexts, so being accessible to ClaudeBot matters for B2B visibility.
3. PerplexityBot (Perplexity AI)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | PerplexityBot |
| Company | Perplexity AI |
| Purpose | Real-time search answers with citations |
| Full UA string | PerplexityBot/1.0 (https://perplexity.ai) |
PerplexityBot is unique because Perplexity cites its sources directly. When Perplexity answers a question and references your website, users see a direct link. This makes PerplexityBot especially valuable for traffic generation.
4. Google-Extended (Google)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | Google-Extended |
| Company | |
| Purpose | AI Overviews and Gemini training |
Google-Extended is separate from Googlebot. Blocking it won’t affect your Google Search rankings, but it will prevent your content from appearing in Google AI Overviews — the AI-generated summaries that appear above search results.
5. Bytespider (ByteDance)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | Bytespider |
| Company | ByteDance |
| Purpose | TikTok AI features and model training |
ByteDance uses Bytespider for various AI applications across their platforms, including TikTok’s growing search and AI features.
6. CCBot (Common Crawl)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | CCBot |
| Company | Common Crawl Foundation |
| Purpose | Open web dataset used by many AI models |
CCBot builds the Common Crawl dataset — an open repository of web content that many AI companies use for training. Blocking CCBot can have a broad impact because multiple AI models rely on Common Crawl data.
7. FacebookBot (Meta)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | FacebookBot |
| Company | Meta |
| Purpose | AI features across Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) |
Meta uses FacebookBot to power AI features across its family of apps, including Meta AI assistant.
8. Amazonbot (Amazon)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | Amazonbot |
| Company | Amazon |
| Purpose | Alexa AI and Amazon shopping AI |
Amazonbot powers AI features in Alexa, Amazon’s shopping experience, and other Amazon AI services.
9. AppleBot-Extended (Apple)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | Applebot-Extended |
| Company | Apple |
| Purpose | Siri and Apple Intelligence features |
Apple’s extended bot powers AI features in Siri and Apple Intelligence. As Apple deepens its AI integration across iOS and macOS, this crawler becomes increasingly relevant.
10. cohere-ai (Cohere)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | cohere-ai |
| Company | Cohere |
| Purpose | Enterprise AI model training |
Cohere builds AI models primarily for enterprise use. Their crawler gathers web content for training data.
11. Diffbot (Diffbot)
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| User Agent | Diffbot |
| Company | Diffbot |
| Purpose | Knowledge graph and structured data extraction |
Diffbot builds one of the largest knowledge graphs on the web. Many AI applications use Diffbot’s data for entity recognition and fact retrieval.
How to Allow AI Crawlers in robots.txt
Allow all AI crawlers (recommended)
The simplest approach — don’t block any of them:
# robots.txt
User-agent: *
Allow: /Allow specific AI crawlers
If you want granular control:
# robots.txt
# Allow AI crawlers
User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Allow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /
User-agent: Google-Extended
Allow: /
User-agent: Bytespider
Allow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Allow: /Block specific AI crawlers
If you have reasons to block certain crawlers (e.g., content licensing concerns):
# robots.txt
# Block specific AI crawlers
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /Important: Be intentional about blocking. Every blocked crawler is an AI platform that can’t accurately represent your business.
How to Check Your AI Crawler Status
You can manually check by reading your robots.txt file and looking for AI crawler directives. But with 11+ crawlers to check, it’s easy to miss something.
The fastest way is to use our free AI Exposure audit — it checks all 11 AI crawlers in seconds and tells you exactly which ones are allowed and which are blocked.
Common Problems
”I didn’t block any AI crawlers, but they’re showing as blocked”
This usually happens because of a broad Disallow rule. For example:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /This blocks all crawlers, including AI bots. Many sites have this as a leftover from development or staging environments.
”My CDN/WAF is blocking AI crawlers”
Some CDNs and Web Application Firewalls (like Cloudflare, Akamai, or Sucuri) aggressively block bot traffic. Check your WAF settings and make sure AI crawlers are whitelisted.
”I only want AI crawlers to see certain pages”
You can be selective:
User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /about
Allow: /products
Allow: /blog
Disallow: /admin
Disallow: /privateWhy You Should Care
Here’s the bottom line: over 60% of websites block at least one AI crawler without knowing it.
Every blocked crawler is a missed opportunity. When a potential customer asks an AI assistant about products or services in your industry, you want to be mentioned. That only happens if AI models have access to accurate, up-to-date information about your business.
The fix is usually simple — a few lines in your robots.txt. The impact on your AI visibility can be significant.
Check your AI crawler status now — Run a free AI Exposure audit and see exactly which of the 11 AI crawlers can access your website.