What Are AI Crawlers?

AI crawlers are automated bots operated by AI vendors that fetch web pages for two very different purposes: training the next generation of large language models, and retrieval — powering live answers inside AI search products. Treating both as a single category is the most common mistake site owners make when configuring access.

The two purposes of AI crawlers

Purpose	What the bot does	Implication for you
Training	Bulk fetch text used to train a future model release	Your content may shape the model long after it forgets the URL
Retrieval	Fetch pages on demand to ground a live AI answer	Blocking the bot removes you from being cited

Most major vendors now run separate user agents for each purpose so publishers can opt in or out independently.

The major AI crawlers

Bot	Vendor	Purpose
GPTBot	OpenAI	Training
OAI-SearchBot	OpenAI	ChatGPT Search retrieval
ChatGPT-User	OpenAI	On-demand fetch when a user asks ChatGPT to read a URL
Google-Extended	Google	Training Gemini and Vertex AI products
Googlebot	Google	Standard search index — also feeds AI Overviews retrieval
ClaudeBot / Claude-Web / anthropic-ai	Anthropic	Training and retrieval
PerplexityBot	Perplexity	Index for Perplexity answers
CCBot	Common Crawl	Public web archive used by many model trainers
Applebot-Extended	Apple	Training Apple Intelligence
Bytespider	ByteDance	Training
Meta-ExternalAgent	Meta	Training Llama models

How to control AI crawlers

Access is controlled with robots.txt. To opt out of training while staying eligible for live AI search citations, block the training bots and allow the retrieval bots:

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

Blocking everything indiscriminately is the riskiest configuration: it removes the upside of being cited without changing whether your content is used for training (older crawls and third-party datasets persist).

Bot analytics: knowing who is actually fetching

Server logs are the reference. A dedicated bot analytics tool — like the one built into WildSEO — classifies each user agent, flags spoofed traffic, and shows which AI bots are actually fetching your pages, how often, and which URLs they prioritise. It is a leading indicator of AI search visibility weeks before citations show up.

Frequently asked questions

Will blocking GPTBot remove me from ChatGPT?

No. GPTBot only governs training. ChatGPT Search uses OAI-SearchBot. The two are independent.

Are AI crawlers the same as scrapers?

Reputable AI crawlers identify themselves with a clear user agent and respect robots.txt. Scrapers often spoof browser user agents and ignore directives. Treat unverified traffic with caution.

Do I need to verify bot identity?

Yes if you care about accuracy. Major vendors publish IP ranges or reverse-DNS patterns you can use to confirm a request really came from them.