How AI Search Crawlers Index Your Site (And Evolving Crawl Budgets)

Introduction

AI search engines rely on specialized web crawlers to collect content to train models and power real-time conversational searches. To ensure your website is cited, you must configure your site files to allow and guide these AI bots.

Meet the Key AI Crawlers

• GPTBot / ChatGPT-User: Deployed by OpenAI to scan indexing pages and support real-time ChatGPT Search.
• ClaudeBot / Claude-Web: Anthropic's crawler that fetches pages for context and model analytics.
• PerplexityBot: Real-time crawler designed to fetch citation documents for Perplexity queries.

Configuring Robots.txt for AEO

To let AI search crawlers access and index your Next.js application, ensure your public/robots.txt file contains the correct agent configurations:

User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

Blocking these bots keeps your site private but completely removes your brand from modern AI search answers.