AI Crawlers
In one sentence
Automated programs used by AI companies to scrape web content, which may be used to train models or power real-time web retrieval in responses.
Common examples include GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot, and Bytespider (ByteDance). Websites can allow or block them via robots.txt.
Pages you want cited by AI must not be blocked by robots.txt, and their main body text should not depend on JavaScript to display.
Example
A check of the website's robots.txt revealed that all crawlers were accidentally blocked. Only after updating it to allow access could AI read the site's content.
Related terms
- llms.txt
- An explanatory file placed in the website root directory for AI to read, using brief text and links to explain what the site is and which pages matter most.
- Structured Data (Schema)
- Use schema.org standards to annotate organization, article, FAQ, and product data within webpages, so search engines and AI can understand the content without guessing.
- Web Search
- A feature where AI searches the web for the latest content before answering, then generates its response based on the retrieved web pages.
Further reading
GEO Guide
Can AI Crawlers Read Vue and React Websites?
Vue and React do not inherently block AI crawlers. What matters is whether the server returns raw HTML with your text, links, and clean HTTP status codes.
Oct 11, 2026 · 16 min read
GEO Guide
robots.txt for AI Crawlers: Allow Search, Block Training
You can let AI search engines index your pages while blocking model training bots. Here is how to configure robots.txt for OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Oct 8, 2026 · 10 min read
GEO Guide
Is Your Website Ready for AI Crawlers? A 10-Point Technical Checklist
An Allow directive in robots.txt only sets a rule. It does not prove that AI engines have crawled, indexed, or cited your website.
Oct 6, 2026 · 9 min read
