Managing bot traffic has become the single most critical task for webmasters in late 2025. With the explosion of Large Language Models (LLMs), companies are aggressively scraping the open web to train their datasets. If you don’t manage these bots, your server resources—and your content’s uniqueness—are at risk. This guide provides the Complete Crawler List For AI User-Agents active right now, giving you the power to decide who gets access to your site.
Whether you want to block your content from being used in AI training or simply want to save bandwidth, knowing the specific user-agent strings is the first step. Below, we break down every major AI crawler, their purpose, and how to control them.
Why You Must Audit Your Bot Traffic Now
The landscape of web crawling has shifted from “search indexing” (which sends you traffic) to “model training” (which consumes your content). Traditional bots like Googlebot give value back to you. New AI agents often take your content to train models like GPT-5 or Claude 4 without offering a click-back.
By updating your robots.txt file with the Complete Crawler List For AI User-Agents, you regain control. You can choose to allow search-enabling bots (like OAI-SearchBot) while blocking training-only scrapers (like GPTBot).
If you are unsure how to implement these technical changes, our team at DigiWeb Insight can audit your server logs and configure the protection for you.
The Big Three: OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic
These three companies are responsible for the vast majority of AI traffic. Their crawlers are generally well-behaved and respect standard robots.txt directives.
1. OpenAI (ChatGPT)
OpenAI has split its crawlers into distinct categories: one for training and one for search.
- GPTBot: Used exclusively for training future models. Blocking this prevents your content from feeding the next ChatGPT.
- OAI-SearchBot: Used for SearchGPT and prototype search features. Allowing this helps you appear in AI-generated answers.
- ChatGPT-User: This is a “live” fetch triggered by a user asking ChatGPT to browse a specific page.
Robots.txt Rule:
Plaintext
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
2. Google (Gemini & Vertex AI)
Google has introduced a specific token for its AI training datasets, separate from its core search crawler.
- Google-Extended: This is the standalone token for AI training. Blocking this stops Google from using your site to train Gemini, but does not affect your SEO ranking in Google Search.
Robots.txt Rule:
Plaintext
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
3. Anthropic (Claude)
Anthropic has also clarified its crawler behavior in 2025.
- anthropic-ai: The primary crawler for model training.
- ClaudeBot: Used for retrieval and verification.
Robots.txt Rule:
Plaintext
User-agent: anthropic-ai
Disallow: /
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /
The Complete Crawler List For AI User-Agents (Expanded)
Beyond the big three, dozens of other companies are scraping the web. To ensure your blocklist is comprehensive, you need to account for Apple, Amazon, and various aggressive scrapers like ByteDance.
Here is the data you need for your robots.txt file.
| Company | User-Agent String | Purpose |
| Apple | Applebot-Extended | Training Apple Intelligence models. |
| Amazon | Amazonbot | Training Alexa and Bedrock models. |
| Common Crawl | CCBot | Open dataset used by many AI companies. |
| Perplexity | PerplexityBot | Real-time AI search engine. |
| Meta (Facebook) | FacebookBot | Training Llama models and speech AI. |
| ByteDance | Bytespider | Training TikTok/Doubao models (Aggressive). |
| Cohere | cohere-ai | Enterprise AI model training. |
| Diffbot | Diffbot | Extracting structured data from web pages. |
Handling Aggressive Bots: A Warning
Not all bots on the Complete Crawler List For AI User-Agents play by the rules. Bytespider (ByteDance) has been notorious in 2024 and 2025 for ignoring robots.txt directives and consuming massive bandwidth.
For these aggressive bots, simple text rules might not be enough. You may need server-level blocking. If your site is slowing down due to bot traffic, consider consulting a web design and development expert to implement firewall rules or Cloudflare restrictions.
How to Implement the Blocklist
You don’t need to block everyone. A nuanced approach is best. For example, you might want to allow PerplexityBot because it functions like a search engine and cites its sources, potentially driving traffic to you. However, you might want to block CCBot (Common Crawl) because it is a “vacuum” used by hundreds of anonymous AI startups who will never credit you.
Here is a universal robots.txt snippet you can copy and paste to block the most common training scrapers while keeping your SEO intact:
Plaintext
# Block AI Training Crawlers
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: Google-Extended
User-agent: anthropic-ai
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
User-agent: Amazonbot
User-agent: CCBot
User-agent: FacebookBot
User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /
Monitoring Your Logs
Implementing the Complete Crawler List For AI User-Agents is not a “set it and forget it” task. New bots appear every month. You should regularly check your server access logs to see which User-Agents are hitting your site most frequently.
If you see a generic user-agent consuming high bandwidth, it might be a new AI startup masking their identity. In these cases, IP-based blocking is your only defense.
The Role of SEO in an AI World
Blocking AI bots does not mean you are giving up on visibility. In fact, it protects your “human” SEO. When you block training bots, you force AI users to visit your actual website to get the full value of your content, rather than getting a summarized version inside a chatbot.
To maintain high visibility in traditional search engines like Google and Bing, you must continue to invest in high-quality content and technical optimization. Working with an affordable SEO agency in the USA can help you balance the fine line between blocking scrapers and maintaining organic growth.
Conclusion: Take Back Your Data
The internet is no longer just for humans. It is a training ground for machines. By using this Complete Crawler List For AI User-Agents, you assert ownership over your digital property.
You have the right to decide if your hard work should be used to train a trillion-dollar model for free. Update your robots.txt today, monitor your traffic, and stay vigilant.
For a more aggressive strategy involving Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing to drive immediate human traffic while you lock down your content, reach out to us. The future of the web is gated—make sure you hold the keys.