The AI Crawler Access Checklist for 2026 (Download PDF + Excel)
Kamaraj Mathiarasan (Kim)
Last updated on
You cannot be cited by an AI engine that cannot read your site. This checklist helps you make a deliberate decision about which AI crawlers to allow, then confirm the ones you want can actually reach your content. It is the technical prerequisite behind our GEO and platform checklists, and the one we run first for clients at PipeRocket Digital.
It is interactive. Tick each item as you finish it, your progress saves in your browser, and you can download the whole thing as a PDF or Excel.
How to use this checklist
Decide your policy per crawler, set robots.txt accordingly, then remove the hidden blocks (CDN, WAF, JavaScript) that silently keep allowed bots out, and verify in your logs. The most common failure is a page that looks open but is blocked at the edge.
The AI Crawler Access Checklist for 2026
Make a deliberate decision about which AI crawlers can read your site, then make sure the ones you want can actually reach it. Tick items off as you go. Your progress saves automatically, and you can download the whole thing as a PDF or Excel.
0 of 18 complete
1. Know the crawlers
2. Decide your policy
3. Configure robots.txt correctly
4. Remove hidden blocks
5. Verify
Know the crawlers
Learn the main agents: OpenAI’s GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, and ChatGPT-User; Google’s Googlebot and Google-Extended; Perplexity’s PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User; Anthropic’s ClaudeBot; and others like CCBot, Bytespider, Amazonbot, Applebot-Extended, and Meta-ExternalAgent. Each behaves differently and serves a different product.
Decide your policy
Decide, per crawler, whether being cited matters more than withholding content. Allow the assistant crawlers you want citations from, block only the ones you have a real reason to block (knowing the trade-off), and note that Google-Extended controls AI training only and does not affect your Google Search ranking.
Configure robots.txt correctly
Write explicit user-agent rules per bot, confirm you are not accidentally blocking a bot you want with an over-broad disallow, and consider an llms.txt file to point AI systems to your key content.
Remove hidden blocks
A permissive robots.txt is not enough if the edge blocks bots. Check that your CDN or WAF (for example Cloudflare’s AI-bot controls) is not silently blocking AI crawlers, make sure firewall or rate-limit rules do not throttle allowed bots, and confirm content is server-rendered rather than hidden behind JavaScript.
Verify
Check your server logs to confirm the crawlers you allowed are actually fetching pages, test a fetch as each bot where possible, and re-audit after any robots.txt, CDN, or firewall change, since these settings drift.
Go deeper
This is one of the checklists in our marketing checklists hub . It underpins the GEO checklist , ChatGPT SEO checklist , Perplexity SEO checklist , and Bing Copilot checklist .
How we use this at PipeRocket Digital
The first thing we check for AI-search visibility is whether the crawlers can even reach the site, and often they cannot. If you want a senior team to audit and fix your AI crawler access, talk to us .
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an AI crawler?
An AI crawler is a bot that fetches web content for an AI system, either to train a model or to answer a live query with citations. Examples include OpenAI’s GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot, and ClaudeBot. Whether you allow them decides if those systems can read and cite you.
Should I block or allow AI crawlers?
If you want to be cited in AI answers, allow the relevant crawlers; if you want to keep content out of AI systems, block them, accepting the loss of visibility. Most brands pursuing AI-search visibility should allow the assistant crawlers (GPTBot/OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended) while blocking only what they have a specific reason to.
How do I allow or block AI crawlers?
Add explicit user-agent rules in your robots.txt for each bot (allow or disallow), and just as importantly, make sure your CDN or WAF is not blocking them at the edge. A permissive robots.txt does nothing if Cloudflare or a firewall rule silently blocks the bot before it reaches your server.
Does blocking Google-Extended hurt my Google ranking?
No. Google-Extended controls whether your content can be used for Google’s generative AI training (Gemini, Vertex), and Google has stated it does not affect crawling or ranking in Google Search. You can block Google-Extended and still rank normally, though you may reduce eligibility to appear in some AI features.
What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is an emerging, voluntary standard: a file at your site root that points AI systems to your most important, LLM-friendly content, similar in spirit to robots.txt or a sitemap. Support is not universal, but adding one is low-effort and signals which content you want AI systems to prioritise.
