Is Your Website Blocking AI? How to Check with Crawl Gate
Many websites accidentally block AI crawlers, making their brand invisible to ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Learn how to check if your site is affected—and how to fix it.
GetFanatic Team
The Hidden Barrier Between Your Brand and AI
You've invested in great content. Your website looks professional. Your messaging is on point. But when users ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for recommendations in your industry, you're nowhere to be found.
The problem might not be your content—it might be that AI can't even see your website.
Many websites accidentally block AI crawlers through firewall settings, robots.txt rules, or bot protection services. When AI systems can't access your site, they can't recommend your brand—no matter how good your content is.
GetFanatic's Crawl Gate is a free tool that instantly checks whether major AI systems can access your website. Here's why this matters and how to use it.
Why AI Crawlers Matter for Your Brand
AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini don't just make up answers. They rely on crawlers to access and index web content, which they then use to generate recommendations.
If your website blocks these crawlers, the AI has to rely on:
- Outdated training data — Information from months or years ago
- Third-party mentions — What others say about you (which you can't control)
- Search engine snippets — Brief, incomplete descriptions
This means AI might give users stale or inaccurate information about your brand—or skip mentioning you entirely.
The Two Types of AI Crawlers
Not all AI crawlers serve the same purpose. Understanding the difference helps you make informed decisions about what to allow.
1. AI Search & Recommendation Agents
These crawlers actively index the web so AI assistants can answer questions and make recommendations in real-time.
| Crawler | Company | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | Powers ChatGPT's web search |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | Powers Perplexity's answers |
| Claude-Web | Anthropic | Powers Claude's web access |
| Gemini-User | Powers Gemini's browsing |
Why allow them: When these crawlers can access your site, AI can recommend your brand with current, accurate information. Block them, and you're invisible to AI-powered search.
2. AI Training Crawlers
These crawlers collect content to train AI models—teaching them how to understand and generate text.
| Crawler | Company | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | OpenAI | Collects data for model training |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | Collects data for model training |
| Google-Extended | Collects data for Gemini training | |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | Public dataset for AI training |
Why block them: Many businesses block training crawlers to prevent their unique content from training AI that competitors also use. Blocking these does NOT affect whether AI can recommend you—that's controlled by the search agents above.
Common Reasons AI Crawlers Get Blocked
Your site might be blocking AI crawlers without you even knowing. Here are the most common causes:
1. Firewall / WAF Rules
Services like Cloudflare, Akamai, and AWS WAF often block automated requests by default. AI crawlers may get caught in these broad anti-bot rules.
Symptom: Crawl Gate shows "Firewall Block" or "HTTP 403" for multiple crawlers.
Fix: Whitelist specific AI user-agents in your WAF settings. Most AI companies publish their crawler user-agents for exactly this purpose.
2. Robots.txt Rules
Your robots.txt file might explicitly disallow AI crawlers—sometimes inherited from templates or added by overzealous SEO plugins.
Symptom: Crawl Gate shows crawlers as blocked, and your robots.txt contains rules like User-agent: GPTBot followed by Disallow: /.
Fix: Review your robots.txt and remove or modify rules that block the AI agents you want to allow.
3. Bot Protection Services
Some bot protection services are aggressive about blocking anything that looks automated—including legitimate AI crawlers.
Symptom: Crawl Gate shows "Challenge Page" (HTTP 503) or "Bot Protection Block" (HTTP 402).
Fix: Configure your bot protection to recognize and allow specific AI crawler user-agents.
4. Rate Limiting
If AI crawlers hit your site too frequently, they might get rate-limited (HTTP 429).
Symptom: Some AI crawlers are blocked with "Rate Limited" while others work fine.
Fix: Adjust rate limiting rules to accommodate crawler traffic, or whitelist AI user-agents from rate limits.
How to Check Your Site with Crawl Gate
Crawl Gate makes it easy to diagnose AI accessibility issues:
Step 1: Enter Your Domain
Go to app.getfanatic.ai/crawlgate and enter your website domain. No signup required for basic scans.
Step 2: Review the Results
Crawl Gate tests your site against 25+ AI crawlers and shows you:
- Allowed: This crawler can access your site ✓
- Blocked: This crawler is being blocked ✗
- Block reason: Why the crawler is blocked (firewall, robots.txt, etc.)
Step 3: Understand the Categories
Results are organized by crawler type:
- User-Initiated Browse Agents: Only activate when a human explicitly asks AI to visit a URL
- AI Search & Recommendation Agents: Continuously index the web for AI-powered answers
- AI Training Crawlers: Collect data for model training
Step 4: Take Action
For each blocked crawler, Crawl Gate explains what's happening and how to fix it. Focus first on the search agents—these directly impact whether AI recommends your brand.
What to Allow vs. Block
There's no one-size-fits-all answer. Here's a framework for deciding:
Definitely Allow (for AI Visibility)
- OAI-SearchBot — Powers ChatGPT's search and recommendations
- PerplexityBot — Powers Perplexity's real-time answers
- Bingbot — Powers Microsoft Copilot and Bing AI
- Applebot — Powers Apple's AI features
If you want AI assistants to recommend your brand with accurate, current information, these need access.
Consider Blocking (to protect content from training)
- GPTBot — OpenAI's training crawler
- ClaudeBot — Anthropic's training crawler
- Google-Extended — Google's AI training crawler
- CCBot — Common Crawl's public dataset
Blocking these prevents your content from training AI models, while still allowing AI search features to work.
Your Call (based on your situation)
- User browse agents (ChatGPT-User, Claude-Web) — Only activate when users explicitly ask AI to visit your site during a conversation
- Regional/niche AI crawlers — Depends on whether you target those markets
"But ChatGPT Still Knows About My Site..."
You might notice that even with crawlers blocked, ChatGPT can still answer questions about your company. This happens because AI assistants have fallback methods:
- Cached search engine data — Google and Bing snippets
- Training data — Information from before the AI's knowledge cutoff
- Third-party sources — Reviews, news articles, social media
The problem: this information is often outdated or incomplete. Your competitors who allow AI access get their current pricing, features, and messaging surfaced. You get yesterday's news.
The GEO Impact of Crawler Access
According to GetFanatic's research, websites that block AI search agents see significantly lower mention rates in AI-generated recommendations—even when they have excellent content.
The logic is simple:
- AI can't access your site → AI relies on indirect sources
- Indirect sources are incomplete → AI has less confidence recommending you
- Competitors allow access → AI has more and better information about them
- Result: Competitors get recommended, you don't
Monitor Crawler Access Over Time
Fixing crawler access isn't a one-time task. Things change:
- Firewall rules get updated
- New AI crawlers emerge
- Bot protection services change their defaults
- CMS updates might reset configurations
Use Crawl Gate periodically to ensure AI crawlers can still access your site. GetFanatic users can also track this as part of their overall AI visibility monitoring.
Take Action Now
Every day your site blocks AI crawlers is a day you're invisible to AI-powered discovery. The fix is usually straightforward—whitelist the right user-agents—but you first need to know there's a problem.
Check your site now: app.getfanatic.ai/crawlgate
In under a minute, you'll know exactly which AI systems can see your website—and which can't. Then you can make informed decisions about what to allow.
Next Steps
Once you've ensured AI can access your site, the next step is optimizing your content for AI recommendations:
- Track your AI visibility: Monitor which AI queries mention your brand
- Analyze your competitors: See how you compare to alternatives
- Optimize your landing pages: Use Page Roaster to see how AI interprets your copy
- Find content opportunities: Identify gaps where you should be mentioned but aren't
AI visibility starts with access. Make sure nothing is standing between your brand and AI-powered discovery.