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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a robots.txt file for AI crawlers?

A robots.txt file is a plain text file at the root of your domain (yourdomain.com/robots.txt) that tells crawlers which parts of your site they can access. For AI, it is where you decide whether crawlers like GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot can read your content, which determines whether AI engines can train on you, fetch you live, and cite you in their answers.

Should I allow or block AI bots?

For most brands, allow them. AI crawlers do two different jobs: training bots like GPTBot and CCBot learn from your content, while retrieval bots like OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot fetch and cite you in live answers. Blocking the retrieval bots makes you invisible in AI search. The common middle ground is to allow retrieval bots and block training-only crawlers if you do not want your content used to train models.

Which AI crawlers should I allow to get mentioned in AI answers?

Allow the retrieval crawlers that power AI citations: OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User for ChatGPT, ClaudeBot for Claude, PerplexityBot for Perplexity, and Googlebot for Google AI Overviews. These are the bots that read your pages and turn them into cited answers, so blocking any one removes you from that engine, no matter how strong your content is.

How does robots.txt affect my AI search visibility?

Your robots.txt is the gate to AI visibility. If it blocks an engine's crawler, that engine cannot read your pages and cannot mention or cite you, no matter how good your content is. Allowing the right crawlers is the precondition for showing up, not a ranking boost on its own. One catch: robots.txt is a directive, not a wall, and some crawlers have been reported to ignore it.

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