# AI Crawler Reality Check (`a.klimm67/ai-crawler-reality-check`) Actor

robots.txt says GPTBot is welcome. Your server returns 403. This Actor sends live requests as 12 AI crawlers and reports the gap between what you allow and what you actually serve.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/a.klimm67/ai-crawler-reality-check.md
- **Developed by:** [Andrii Klymenko](https://apify.com/a.klimm67) (community)
- **Categories:** SEO tools, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$50.00 / 1,000 website checks

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## AI Crawler Reality Check

**Your robots.txt says GPTBot is welcome. Your server disagrees. You will never find out from robots.txt.**

Most AI-visibility tools read `robots.txt` and tell you what it *says*. But `robots.txt` is a declaration, not behaviour. The actual blocking usually happens one layer above it — Cloudflare, a WAF, bot-fight mode, a rate limit keyed on User-Agent. A site can allow `GPTBot` in `robots.txt` and still return 403 to every single one of its requests.

This Actor sends **live requests as 12 real AI crawlers** and compares what your site *permits* with what it *actually serves*.

### A real example, not a hypothetical

Running this on `notion.com` returns:

> `robots.txt allows, but the server does NOT serve this bot (Bingbot: HTTP 403, bot challenge page)`

Notion's `robots.txt` welcomes Bingbot. Their edge returns a challenge page instead. Bing powers Copilot. Nothing in a `robots.txt` audit would ever show this.

### What you get

**1. Crawler matrix** — for each of 12 bots: what `robots.txt` declares, what the server actually returned, and whether the response was a bot challenge:

| Bot | robots.txt | Live response | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | allowed | 200 | — |
| ClaudeBot | allowed | 200 | — |
| Bingbot | allowed | 403 challenge | **allows, but does not serve** |

Bots tested: GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Bingbot, Amazonbot, CCBot, meta-externalagent.

**2. Extractability** — being fetched is not the same as being quoted. For each page: JSON-LD presence and schema types, author attribution, `dateModified`, FAQ blocks, question-style headings, visible text length, and whether the content only exists after JavaScript runs.

**3. `llms.txt` detection** — present or not, and its size.

### An honest control that other tools skip

Before comparing bots, the Actor fetches your site **with an ordinary browser User-Agent**.

If that request also fails, the run is marked `inconclusive` and explains why — because a site that returns 403 to everyone from a datacenter IP is not running an AI-crawler policy, it is blocking the network. Reporting "12 crawlers blocked" in that case would be a lie.

Verified on `openai.com`: it returns 403 to GPTBot **and** to Chrome from the same network. Without the control fetch, this tool would have reported twelve fake findings.

### When to use this

- Your content stopped appearing in ChatGPT, Perplexity or AI Overviews and you do not know why
- You added a WAF or turned on bot protection and want to know what it broke
- You are doing GEO/AEO work and need evidence, not assumptions
- You maintain a site for a client and want a before/after artifact

### Input

```json
{ "urls": [{ "url": "https://example.com/your-article" }], "additionalPages": ["https://example.com/pricing"] }
```

Check the exact pages you care about, not just the homepage — protection rules often differ per path.

### Limits, stated plainly

- Runs from a datacenter IP. Some sites treat that differently than residential traffic; that is exactly what the control fetch is there to reveal.
- Tests whether a crawler is *served*, not whether an LLM *chose to cite you*. No public API exposes citation data; anyone claiming otherwise is guessing.
- `robots.txt` parsing covers the directives crawlers actually honour, not every edge case of the spec.

***

Built by an engineer who runs a multi-agent system in production and got tired of tools that report the manifest instead of the behaviour.

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

One or more URLs. Check the exact page you care about, not only the homepage: bot protection rules often differ per path.

## `additionalPages` (type: `array`):

Optional. Article or product URLs to inspect for structured data, author, date and an answer-first opening.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.notion.com"
    }
  ],
  "additionalPages": []
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "urls": [
        {
            "url": "https://www.notion.com"
        }
    ],
    "additionalPages": []
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("a.klimm67/ai-crawler-reality-check").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "urls": [{ "url": "https://www.notion.com" }],
    "additionalPages": [],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("a.klimm67/ai-crawler-reality-check").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.notion.com"
    }
  ],
  "additionalPages": []
}' |
apify call a.klimm67/ai-crawler-reality-check --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=a.klimm67/ai-crawler-reality-check",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/lsGlrlJr2OJEYrZvh/builds/rqMREPaleNFwywrIe/openapi.json