AI Crawlers Explained

AI crawlers are bots that AI companies use to read your site for their answer engines and models — the main ones are OpenAI's GPTBot, Perplexity's PerplexityBot, Anthropic's ClaudeBot, and Google-Extended (which governs Google's AI features like Gemini). You control their access in robots.txt, just like Googlebot, and if you want to be cited by AI search you generally want to allow them.

If AI search is going to cite your site, AI crawlers have to be able to read it first. Here's who they are, what they do, and how to decide what to allow.

What AI crawlers are

AI crawlers are automated bots, run by AI companies, that fetch web pages to power answer engines and to gather training data. They behave much like traditional search crawlers but serve AI systems. Like Googlebot, each identifies itself with a user-agent name you can target in robots.txt to allow or block.

The main AI crawlers

The ones that matter most in 2026: GPTBot (OpenAI — powers ChatGPT's web access and data collection); PerplexityBot (Perplexity — fetches pages for its real-time, source-cited answers); ClaudeBot (Anthropic — used for Claude); and Google-Extended (a control that governs whether Google may use your content for its AI features such as Gemini and AI Overview generation, separate from normal Googlebot indexing). There are others (for Bing/Copilot, Apple, Amazon, and more), but these four cover most of the AI-search surface.

How to allow or block them in robots.txt

You control AI crawlers in the same robots.txt file you use for Googlebot, by user-agent. To welcome them, ensure your robots.txt doesn't disallow their user-agents. To block one, add a Disallow rule for its user-agent. Reports indicate some engines reflect robots.txt changes quickly — Perplexity within about a day — so access changes take effect fast.

Should you allow them?

This is a genuine trade-off. Allowing AI crawlers makes your content eligible to be cited in AI answers — a growing source of high-intent traffic. The counter-argument is that they may use your content in answers (or training) without sending a click. For most businesses that want visibility in the AI-answer layer, the visibility upside outweighs the concern, so the common choice is to allow the answer-engine crawlers. Sites with strict content-licensing concerns sometimes block training crawlers while allowing retrieval ones — a nuance you can manage per user-agent.

Technical access is the entry ticket, not the ride

Allowing AI crawlers gets you considered; it doesn't get you cited. Once they can read your site, citation still depends on structure and quality — answer-first content, specifics, schema, and authority. Think of crawler access as the entry ticket: necessary, but the content is what wins the citation.

How microsites handle crawler access

Every microsite built through Microsite Generator ships with robots rules that welcome the major AI crawlers by default (unless you choose otherwise), plus a flat sitemap and an llms.txt to help engines understand the site — so it's eligible for AI search from day one, then earns citations on the strength of its content.

Frequently asked questions

What are AI crawlers?

AI crawlers are bots run by AI companies to read web pages for their answer engines and models. The main ones are GPTBot (OpenAI), PerplexityBot (Perplexity), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), and Google-Extended (Google's AI features).

How do I allow or block AI crawlers?

Control them in robots.txt by user-agent, the same way you handle Googlebot. To be eligible for AI citation, don't disallow their user-agents; to block one, add a Disallow rule for it.

Should I allow AI crawlers on my site?

For most businesses wanting AI-search visibility, yes — it makes you eligible to be cited, a growing source of high-intent traffic. Sites with content-licensing concerns sometimes block training crawlers while allowing retrieval ones.

What is Google-Extended?

Google-Extended is a robots.txt control that governs whether Google may use your content for its AI features (like Gemini and AI Overview generation), separate from normal Googlebot indexing.

Does Microsite Generator allow AI crawlers?

Yes — each microsite ships with robots rules that welcome the major AI crawlers by default, plus a flat sitemap and llms.txt, so it's eligible for AI search from day one.

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