# AI Crawler & robots.txt Access Checker (GPTBot, Claude) (`reaperoak/ai-crawler-robots-txt-access-checker`) Actor

See which AI crawlers a website allows or blocks: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and more, read from robots.txt per RFC 9309. Also checks sitemaps and llms.txt. Bulk domains, one verdict per crawler.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/reaperoak/ai-crawler-robots-txt-access-checker.md
- **Developed by:** [Owais Khan](https://apify.com/reaperoak) (community)
- **Categories:** SEO tools, AI, Marketing
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $8.50 / 1,000 domain checkeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## AI Crawler & robots.txt Access Checker (GPTBot, Claude)

See which **AI crawlers a website allows or blocks**: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, CCBot and more, read straight from `robots.txt` using the standard matching rules (RFC 9309). One verdict per crawler for each domain, plus a headline policy, the site's sitemaps and whether it publishes `llms.txt`.

### What is the AI Crawler Access Checker?

Publishers are deciding what AI companies may do with their content, and `robots.txt` is where that decision is written down. Reading it by eye is error-prone: rules are matched by the longest pattern, groups can repeat, wildcards and `$` anchors apply. This Actor applies the real matching rules to each crawler and tells you plainly whether it is ALLOWED, RESTRICTED or BLOCKED, and which rule decided it.

### What makes it different?

- **Real matching, not keyword search.** Longest-match, Allow-beats-tie, wildcards, end anchors and merged groups, as in RFC 9309.
- **Crawlers grouped by purpose.** AI training, AI search and assistants, and classic search engines are reported separately, so *blocks AI training but allows AI search* is visible at a glance.
- **Headline policy per domain**, for example `blocks-ai-training`, `open-to-ai-crawlers` or `no-robots-txt`.
- **Sitemaps and llms.txt in the same run**: status, entry count and newest date for declared sitemaps.
- **Unreadable robots.txt handled honestly.** A site that refuses the request or is unreachable gets UNKNOWN for every crawler, not a guess. A missing file (404) means no restrictions; a server error means crawlers should assume everything is disallowed.

### What data does the checker return?

| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| `domain, robotsStatus, robotsHttpStatus` | `nytimes.com`, `found`, `200` |
| `policy` | `blocks-ai-training-and-ai-search` |
| `bots` | per crawler: `token`, `operator`, `category`, `verdict` (ALLOWED, RESTRICTED, BLOCKED or UNKNOWN), `explicit`, `decidedBy`, `crawlDelay` |
| `bots` | per crawler: `token`, `operator`, `category`, `verdict`, `explicit`, `decidedBy`, `crawlDelay` |
| `sitemapsDeclared, sitemaps` | declared sitemaps with status, kind, entries and newest lastmod |
| `llmsTxt` | `{ found: true, url, bytes }` |
| `assumption` | what a crawler should assume given the robots.txt response |

A `SUMMARY` record shows how many domains were checked and how many fall under each headline policy.

### Crawlers checked

| Group | Crawlers |
|---|---|
| AI training | GPTBot, ClaudeBot, anthropic-ai, CCBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, Bytespider, Meta-ExternalAgent, cohere-ai, Diffbot, Amazonbot |
| AI search and assistants | OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, DuckAssistBot, YouBot |
| Search engines | Googlebot, Bingbot, Applebot, DuckDuckBot |

Google-Extended and Applebot-Extended are control tokens, not separate crawlers: blocking them tells Google or Apple not to use your content for AI, without affecting search.

### How to check which AI crawlers a site blocks

1. Paste domains or page URLs, one per line.
2. Choose which crawler groups to evaluate and, optionally, extra paths to test.
3. Click **Start**.
4. Read the `policy` and `bots` columns, or export JSON, CSV or Excel for a spreadsheet of many sites.

```json
{
    "domains": [
        "nytimes.com",
        "en.wikipedia.org"
    ],
    "categories": [
        "training",
        "ai-search"
    ]
}
```

- **domains**: only the site's origin is used.
- **testPaths**: a crawler allowed on `/` but blocked on a path you list is RESTRICTED.
- **categories**: `training`, `ai-search`, `search`.

### How much does an AI crawler check cost?

You pay per domain checked returned plus a very small start fee. There is no subscription.

| Domains | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 10 | $0.10 |
| 100 | $1 |
| 1,000 | $10 |
| 5,000 | $50 |

Paid Apify plans get tiered discounts, and you can set a maximum cost per run. You can try it on Apify's free plan without a card.

### Who is it for?

- **Publishers and SEO teams** auditing their own AI-crawler policy.
- **Agencies** reporting on clients' AI visibility and exposure.
- **Researchers and journalists** surveying what many sites allow.
- **AI and data teams** checking which sources permit crawling.

### Frequently asked questions

**Does robots.txt actually stop AI companies?** It is a voluntary convention. Major crawlers from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others say they honour it, but it cannot enforce anything, and it does not cover content already collected.

**What is the difference between ALLOWED, RESTRICTED and BLOCKED?** BLOCKED means the home page is disallowed for that crawler. RESTRICTED means it can fetch the home page but a rule limits some paths (or a path you tested). ALLOWED means no rule limits it.

**Why does a site show UNKNOWN for every crawler?** Some sites refuse automated requests even for robots.txt (for example with HTTP 403 or 418), or cannot be reached. The Actor then cannot read the rules, reports robots-txt-unreadable and marks every crawler UNKNOWN. It never guesses ALLOWED. (A plain 404 is different: no file means no restrictions, so crawlers are ALLOWED.)

**Does blocking Google-Extended remove me from Google Search?** No. Google-Extended only controls use of your content for Gemini AI features. Search is controlled by Googlebot.

**Is a missing llms.txt a problem?** No. It is an optional, emerging convention, and most crawlers do not rely on it yet.

### Notes and limits

- Only public robots.txt, sitemap and llms.txt files are read. Private and internal addresses are refused.
- This is a technical reading of a public file, not legal advice about crawling or copyright.

# Actor input Schema

## `domains` (type: `array`):

Domains or page URLs to check, one per line. Only the site's origin is used, so <code>example.com</code> and <code>https://example.com/page</code> are the same.

## `categories` (type: `array`):

Which groups of crawlers to evaluate: <code>training</code> (AI model training), <code>ai-search</code> (AI search and assistants) and <code>search</code> (classic search engines). Leave empty for all three.

## `testPaths` (type: `array`):

Optional URL paths to test for each crawler, for example <code>/blog/</code> or <code>/pricing</code>. The home page <code>/</code> is always tested. A crawler allowed on <code>/</code> but blocked on a test path is reported as RESTRICTED.

## `checkSitemaps` (type: `boolean`):

Fetches up to three sitemaps listed in robots.txt and reports their status, entry count and newest date.

## `checkLlmsTxt` (type: `boolean`):

Looks for a <code>/llms.txt</code> file, the emerging convention for describing a site to language models.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "domains": [
    "nytimes.com",
    "en.wikipedia.org",
    "github.com"
  ],
  "categories": [
    "training",
    "ai-search",
    "search"
  ],
  "checkSitemaps": true,
  "checkLlmsTxt": true
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

One row per domain: headline policy, a verdict for every crawler, sitemap facts and llms.txt.

## `summary` (type: `string`):

How many domains were checked and how many fall under each headline policy.

# 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 = {
    "domains": [
        "nytimes.com",
        "en.wikipedia.org",
        "github.com"
    ],
    "categories": [
        "training",
        "ai-search",
        "search"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("reaperoak/ai-crawler-robots-txt-access-checker").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 = {
    "domains": [
        "nytimes.com",
        "en.wikipedia.org",
        "github.com",
    ],
    "categories": [
        "training",
        "ai-search",
        "search",
    ],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("reaperoak/ai-crawler-robots-txt-access-checker").call(run_input=run_input)

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

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

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "domains": [
    "nytimes.com",
    "en.wikipedia.org",
    "github.com"
  ],
  "categories": [
    "training",
    "ai-search",
    "search"
  ]
}' |
apify call reaperoak/ai-crawler-robots-txt-access-checker --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,reaperoak/ai-crawler-robots-txt-access-checker"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/6HFx9E44dVgnpFoFN/builds/ODPccoFNyeKqVKNB4/openapi.json