What the Heck Are GPTBot, ClaudeBot & PerplexityBot Doing on Your Site in 2025?

Okay, so if you have checked your server logs in the last few months and seen weird names like GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or PerplexityBot popping up, you are not imagining things. Those are real bots, not some random spam crawler. They come from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity AI and yeah, they are scraping the internet. Including your content.

They are not just chilling on your site for fun. They are collecting info to feed their language models. In other words, they are trying to learn from the stuff you write.

So now it is not just about ranking on Google or optimizing for SEO. It is about what the AI bots are reading, copying, and maybe even quoting later. Sometimes with credit, sometimes... not so much.

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## Let’s Start With GPTBot

GPTBot is from OpenAI, the folks behind ChatGPT. This bot is kinda like that kid in class who photocopies every textbook they can get their hands on.

It goes around scanning pages that are publicly available. That means blogs, tutorials, documentation, FAQs you know, the good stuff. It avoids anything that is behind a login or gated, so your dashboard, course content, and private stuff should be safe.

Now here is the thing: if you have educational, helpful, or generally decent content, GPTBot probably wants to train on it. If you do not want that, you can block it using robots.txt or llms.txt. But if you leave that door open, do not be surprised when it walks in like it owns the place.

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## ClaudeBot: Slightly More Picky

ClaudeBot is from Anthropic, and it is doing the same general thing crawling public content but it has a bit more taste.

From what people can tell, ClaudeBot likes writing that feels human. Like, stuff that sounds like you are talking to someone, not like you are stuffing keywords in just to rank.

So if your blog post reads like you are explaining something to a friend step-by-step guides, tutorials, help articles it will probably eat that right up. Not in a bad way, just... it is hungry for good, clean writing.

Also, same as GPTBot it follows the rules. If you do not want it sniffing around, tell it in the robots.txt or llms.txt.

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## PerplexityBot: The AI Nerd That Actually Gives You Credit (Kinda)

This one is interesting. PerplexityBot powers Perplexity AI, which is basically a search engine with an AI brain. The cool thing? It usually shows sources when it answers stuff. So yeah, your content could actually show up as a cited reference in someone’s AI search.

It seems to like pages that are clear and structured. So think comparison guides, how-to articles, product explainers, or even opinion posts that are not all over the place.

Basically, if your writing looks like something a person would copy into a college essay or an internal team doc, this bot will probably grab it.

And again, you can block it. Same method. Same file.

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## Should You Let These Bots Crawl Your Site?

This is one of those “depends on your goals” kind of situations.

If you are a blogger, content marketer, or run a public-facing info site, then yeah letting these bots crawl your stuff might give you some reach. You might show up in ChatGPT or Perplexity results, or even end up being the source behind someone’s AI-generated answer. Will you always get credit? Honestly, no. But sometimes, sure.

If you are running something behind a paywall or selling gated content? You probably do not want your hard work turning into free AI training data. So go ahead and block those bots. Lock it down.

To be honest, most people do not even realize this stuff is happening. But it is.

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## How to Actually Deal With This

So here is what I would do if I were running a site in 2025 (which I am):

First, decide what you are okay with. Do you want your content in the AI pool or not?

If yes, then write clearly, structure your content properly (headers, subheadings, clean formatting), and keep it updated. Then go add a robots.txt or llms.txt file that tells bots what is cool and what is not.

Also, toss a little AI usage note in your site’s footer. Something like, “Our content may be used by AI models read our policy.” It just shows you are not in the dark.

And maybe start watching your logs. If ClaudeBot keeps hitting the same article over and over, maybe it is time to beef that one up or turn it into a lead magnet or something

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## Why This Stuff Matters Now

AI tools are not some futuristic concept anymore. They are already changing how people find and use information. Not just on Google, but in apps, search bars, chat tools basically everywhere.

If you are ignoring these crawlers, you might be missing traffic and visibility in places your SEO dashboard is not even tracking yet.

I have seen brands that barely rank on Google but keep showing up in AI answers. Not because they cracked a code just because their content was actually helpful and publicly available.

This is not some hype prediction. It is already happening.

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## Final Thoughts (No Corporate Nonsense)

Alright, let us wrap this up.

If you care about your content being found by humans or by AI you need to start thinking about how you want to handle these bots. Do not overcomplicate it. Just write stuff that helps people, organize it properly, and make your crawl preferences clear.

If you do not want AI touching your content, that is totally fair. Just block it. But whatever you do, do it on purpose. Do not just pretend the bots do not exist, because they are already crawling.

Also, keep an eye on your traffic logs. Seriously. You will be surprised who is visiting.