GEO Tool

AI Bot Access Checker for robots.txt

Blocking AI crawlers is the fastest way to get zero citations. Test your site's bot access in seconds by entering a URL or pasting your robots.txt directly.

Fetch and Analyse robots.txt from a URL

Enter your site URL and the checker will automatically fetch your robots.txt and test all major AI crawlers.

Paste robots.txt Content

Copy your robots.txt file and paste it below for instant AI bot access analysis.

Build an AI-Friendly robots.txt

Configure your options below and get a complete robots.txt ready to deploy.

Complete AI Crawler Reference

Why AI Bot Access Is the Most Critical GEO Factor

A site with perfect schema markup, excellent FAQs, and strong E-E-A-T signals will receive zero AI citations if its robots.txt blocks AI crawlers. Access is the prerequisite for everything else. Fix it first.

Many sites accidentally block AI crawlers through overly broad wildcard rules. A common pattern is User-agent: * / Disallow: / used to block scrapers, which also blocks all AI engines. Explicit allow rules for each AI bot override the wildcard.

The Difference Between Search Bots and Training Bots

Not all AI bots serve the same purpose. Understanding the distinction helps you make an informed decision:

  • Search and RAG bots (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended) - fetch your content in real time to answer user queries. Blocking these removes you from AI search results.
  • Training bots (CCBot, Common Crawl) - collect content to train new AI models. Blocking these does not affect whether you appear in AI search answers.

You can block training bots while allowing search bots. Use the robots.txt builder above to generate the correct configuration.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I allow all AI crawlers in robots.txt? ⌄
For GEO purposes, allow AI search and retrieval crawlers: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, ChatGPT-User. These power AI-generated answers. You can separately block training-only crawlers like CCBot if you do not want your content used to train new models.
What is Google-Extended and should I allow it? ⌄
Google-Extended is Google's dedicated crawler for AI Overviews and Gemini. If you block it, your content will not appear in Google AI Overviews. Unless you have a specific reason to block it, you should allow Google-Extended.
What happens if I block AI crawlers? ⌄
Your site will not be cited in AI-generated answers regardless of content quality. Citation rate across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude will be zero for blocked pages. This is the single highest-impact GEO fix for unranked sites.
How do I allow AI bots without allowing all bots? ⌄
Use a restrictive wildcard (User-agent: * / Disallow: /) combined with explicit allow rules for each AI bot (User-agent: GPTBot / Allow: /). The specific bot rules override the wildcard for those user agents.
Related Tools
📄
llms.txt Generator
Create the emerging AI site index standard for better crawl guidance
❓
FAQ Schema Generator
Generate FAQPage JSON-LD schema for higher AI citation rates
✅
GEO Checklist
Full 70-item GEO checklist and live URL scanner