Understand the pros and cons of blocking AI bots like ChatGPT and how to do it if you decide it’s right for you.
AI bots, like those used by ChatGPT and other tools, scan websites to learn and generate answers. You might’ve seen these bots listed in your traffic reports or crawling your site. If you're wondering whether you should block them, you're not alone.
Should I Be Worried?
In most cases, these bots aren’t harmful. They’re just scanning public content to help power AI tools. However, if you're concerned about your content being used without credit, or if you're trying to limit how widely your content is shared, you might consider blocking them.
That said, blocking AI bots won't remove your content from existing models, and it might limit exposure or citations in AI-generated answers. So it’s a tradeoff—some businesses prefer the reach, others prefer tighter control.
Will Blocking AI Bots Affect My SEO?
Nope! Blocking AI bots won’t hurt your SEO. These bots are different from search engines like Google. You can block AI crawlers without affecting your rankings in Google or Bing.
How to Block AI Bots (if you decide to)
If you do want to block them, you can do it by updating your robots.txt file. This file tells bots which parts of your site they’re allowed to visit.
Here’s how to block some common AI bots in your robots.txt file:
Disallow: /
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /
Not sure how to access your
robots.txt file? Ask your website developer or host, or use a tool like ChatGPT to help you create and place the file in your site’s root folder.Still Not Sure?
You can always test it out! Blocking bots isn’t permanent, and you can remove the rule later if you change your mind.
If you want help understanding how AI might be affecting your traffic or visibility, diib has tools to keep you in the loop, including alerts and insights about search changes.