Can You Detect AI Crawler
Can websites detect AI crawlers?
Checking…
Simulates what a normal website can learn from your browser — not a stealth audit.
How to use
- Open in your everyday browser — expect No for typical human visitors.
- If you operate a crawler, load the page with that bot's official user agent to verify the match.
- Copy the user agent string for logging or robots.txt comparisons.
FAQ
Can websites block AI crawlers?
Yes. Publishers match known user-agent tokens, IP lists, and robots.txt rules. This page only shows whether your current UA string matches common AI crawler signatures in our list.
Why No when I use Chrome?
Consumer browsers send human visitor user agents, not GPTBot-style tokens. AI training crawlers use dedicated bot strings declared by their operators.
Which bots are in your list?
Includes GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-Web, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Bytespider, and other widely cited AI/data crawlers — updated as the ecosystem evolves.
Partially vs Yes?
Yes means a known AI crawler token matched. Partially means generic bot keywords in UA without a list match — could be an SEO spider, not necessarily an AI trainer.
Same as Can You Detect Bot?
[Can you detect bot](/tools/detect-bot) focuses on automation flags like webdriver. This page focuses on declared crawler user agents used for indexing and AI training.
Does this prove a site will block me?
No. It only classifies your current UA string locally. Blocking also depends on IP, robots policy, and publisher choice.
Introduction
Can You Detect AI Crawler answers whether your current user agent looks like a known AI training or retrieval bot — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, and others publishers discuss in robots.txt debates. Normal human browsers should read No.
The AI crawler wave made user-agent transparency critical: site owners want to opt out; bot operators declare identifiable strings. This page helps both sides see the same UA classification a simple server-side regex would apply.
Crawlers this page recognizes
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| OpenAI | GPTBot, ChatGPT-User |
| Anthropic | ClaudeBot, Claude-Web, anthropic-ai |
| Search / AI hybrids | PerplexityBot, Google-Extended |
| Platform crawlers | Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent |
| General AI/data | CCBot, Bytespider, Diffbot, cohere-ai |
The list is not exhaustive. New bots appear frequently — treat No as “no match in our table,” not “allowed everywhere.”
Yes vs Partially vs No
- Yes — UA matches a known AI crawler token in our list.
- Partially — generic bot/crawl keywords without a specific AI crawler match.
- No — UA looks like a typical browser visitor string.
Server logs also use IP ranges, crawl rate, and robots compliance — not visible in this tab-only check.
Common use cases
- Publishers — verify your blocklist regex catches GPTBot after robots.txt updates.
- Bot operators — confirm staging sends the intended declared UA.
- Legal / policy — document which agent string a compliance review targets.
- Developers — distinguish AI crawler UAs from Selenium automation (can you detect bot).
Best practices
- Maintain robots.txt and CDN rules — UA matching alone is one layer.
- Log full user agents server-side; this page mirrors client-visible
navigator.userAgent. - Parse arbitrary UAs with user agent parser.
- Human privacy tools rarely change you into an AI crawler UA — they reduce fingerprinting elsewhere.