Question 1

What are AI crawlers?

Accepted Answer

AI crawlers are bots used by AI companies (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Perplexity, etc.) to collect web content for training models or powering AI search engines. They identify themselves via User-Agent strings like GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and Google-Extended.

Question 2

How do I control AI crawler access?

Accepted Answer

Add rules to your robots.txt file. For example, 'User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /' blocks OpenAI's crawler. Omitting rules or explicitly allowing access lets AI crawlers visit your site.

Question 3

What is llms.txt?

Accepted Answer

llms.txt is a file placed at your site root (like robots.txt) that provides a human-readable summary of your site for AI systems. It helps LLMs understand your site's purpose, structure, and preferred citation format.

Question 4

Why should I allow AI crawlers?

Accepted Answer

Allowing AI crawlers means your content can be cited by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview. This is called AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) — being referenced by AI search engines can drive significant traffic.

AI Crawler Tracker

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