📑 Table of Contents
Introduction: The Third Audience
For decades, websites had two audiences: humans and search engines. We designed HTML for eyes and meta tags for Googlebot. Now there's a third audience: AI agents.
GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, and dozens of other AI crawlers are actively scanning the web to train large language models (LLMs). Unlike traditional search engine crawlers that index your content for search results, AI crawlers are harvesting your content to train AI systems that may compete with your website for user attention.
🔑 Key Insight: AI crawlers now account for 5-15% of total bot traffic on many websites, and this number is growing rapidly.
Major AI Crawlers in 2025
Here's a comprehensive list of AI crawlers you should know about:
| Bot Name | Company | Purpose | Respects robots.txt? |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | OpenAI | Training ChatGPT | ✅ Yes |
| ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | ChatGPT browsing feature | ✅ Yes |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | Training Claude | ✅ Yes |
| Google-Extended | Training Gemini | ✅ Yes | |
| Bytespider | ByteDance | TikTok AI features | ⚠️ Sometimes |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | Open dataset for AI | ✅ Yes |
| FacebookBot | Meta | Meta AI training | ✅ Yes |
| cohere-ai | Cohere | Enterprise AI | ✅ Yes |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | AI search engine | ✅ Yes |
How to Identify AI Crawlers in Your Logs
AI crawlers identify themselves through User-Agent strings. Here's what to look for in your server logs:
OpenAI Crawlers
# GPTBot - Training data collection
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; GPTBot/1.2; +https://openai.com/gptbot)
# ChatGPT-User - Browse with Bing feature
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; ChatGPT-User/1.0; +https://openai.com/bot)Anthropic Crawler
# ClaudeBot - Training Claude models
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +https://www.anthropic.com/claude-bot)Google AI Crawler
# Google-Extended - Training Gemini (separate from Googlebot!)
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Google-Extended)Quick grep commands
# Find all AI bot requests in Apache logs
grep -E "GPTBot|ClaudeBot|Google-Extended|Bytespider|CCBot" access.log
# Count requests by AI bot type
grep -oE "GPTBot|ClaudeBot|Google-Extended|Bytespider" access.log | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn
# Find AI bot requests with timestamps
awk '/GPTBot|ClaudeBot|Google-Extended/ {print $4, $7}' access.log💡 Pro Tip: Use LogBeast to automatically detect and categorize 50+ AI crawlers in your logs with detailed reports and trends.
Impact on Your Server Resources
AI crawlers can significantly impact your server performance:
- Bandwidth consumption: AI bots often crawl aggressively, downloading entire sites
- Server load: Increased CPU and memory usage from serving requests
- Database queries: Dynamic pages trigger database lookups for each request
- CDN costs: More requests = higher CDN bills if not cached
- Rate limiting: May trigger your security systems
⚠️ Warning: Some AI crawlers don't respect crawl-delay directives. Monitor your server resources when you first notice AI bot traffic.
Controlling AI Crawler Access
Using robots.txt
The simplest way to control AI crawler access is through your robots.txt file:
# Block all AI training crawlers
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /
# Or allow specific sections only
User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /blog/
Disallow: /Using .htaccess (Apache)
# Block AI bots at server level
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (GPTBot|ClaudeBot|Google-Extended|Bytespider) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Using nginx
# Block AI bots in nginx
if ($http_user_agent ~* (GPTBot|ClaudeBot|Google-Extended|Bytespider)) {
return 403;
}Important Considerations
- robots.txt is voluntary: Bots can ignore it (most major AI bots respect it)
- Separate AI from search: Google-Extended is separate from Googlebot - blocking it won't affect your SEO
- Consider your goals: Being in AI training data may increase your visibility in AI responses
Monitoring AI Bot Activity
Set up ongoing monitoring to understand AI crawler behavior on your site:
Key Metrics to Track
- Requests per day by AI bot type
- Pages most frequently crawled
- Bandwidth consumed by AI bots
- Crawl patterns (time of day, frequency)
- Response codes returned to AI bots
Setting Up Alerts
Consider setting up alerts for:
- Sudden spike in AI bot traffic (>200% normal)
- New AI bot User-Agents appearing
- AI bots hitting rate limits
- Unusual crawl patterns (too fast, weird pages)
The Future of AI Crawling
AI crawling is still evolving. Here's what to expect:
- More AI crawlers: Every AI company will have their own crawler
- Better standards: Expect new robots.txt directives specifically for AI
- Compensation models: Some companies are exploring paying for training data
- Opt-in systems: AI companies may offer benefits for allowing crawling
- Legal frameworks: Copyright law is still catching up with AI training
🎯 Recommendation: Start monitoring AI crawler activity now. Understanding the baseline will help you make informed decisions about whether to allow or block specific AI bots in the future.
Conclusion
AI crawlers are here to stay. Whether you choose to embrace them or block them, understanding their behavior is essential for any website owner. Use tools like LogBeast to get detailed insights into AI crawler activity on your site and make data-driven decisions about access control.