How to check if AI crawlers see your site?

AI search platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Bing Copilot rely on web crawlers to index content. If these crawlers can’t reach your site, your brand won’t appear in AI-generated answers — no matter how good your content is.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to check crawler access and fix potential blocks.

1. Check your robots.txt file

The first step is to ensure your robots.txt doesn’t block AI crawlers.

• Open: https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt
• Look for user-agent rules related to AI crawlers (e.g., ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended)
• If you see disallow lines for important pages, those bots won’t index your content

2. Inspect server logs

AI crawlers often don’t run javascript, so they won’t show up in Google Analytics. raw server logs are the only reliable way to confirm visits.

• Apache: /var/log/apache2/access.log
• Nginx: /var/log/nginx/access.log
• cPanel/Plesk: “raw access logs” in control panel
• managed hosting: ask your provider
  

search logs for crawler visits, e.g.: grep "PerplexityBot" access.log

If you see matches → the crawler visited your site.

If not → it may be blocked or not crawling your content.

3. Ask your hosting provider

Even with robots.txt open, AI crawlers may still be blocked at the server or firewall level. contact your host and ask:

“Are any AI crawlers (OpenAI, Google-Extended, Perplexity, Anthropic, Bingbot) blocked for my domain?”

4. Unblock and re-check

• Update robots.txt to allow the bots you want
• Remove hosting or firewall restrictions
• Wait a few minutes, then check logs again

Crawler visits should start appearing quickly if unblocked.

Bonus tip: hidden crawlers

Some AI crawlers don’t identify themselves clearly. Look for unusual traffic with no referrer and no javascript activity — this can also indicate bot visits.