AI crawlers in your server logs: how to see whether AI visits your website

You can see whether AI visits your website by searching your server logs for the names of AI crawlers, such as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot and ClaudeBot. Every time such a bot requests a page, your web server writes a line that includes the date, the page and the name of the bot (the user agent). That tells you which pages AI reads and whether your website is properly accessible.

What is an AI crawler?

A crawler is a program that fetches web pages automatically. Search engines have used crawlers for years. AI companies now have their own crawlers too. They serve different purposes:

• Training. Collecting pages to train future language models.
• Search. Building their own search index, so the assistant can find sources quickly when asked a question.
• Live fetching. Fetching a page at the moment a user asks a question, or shares a link themselves.

For your AI visibility, the search and live crawlers are the most interesting. They determine whether your pages can end up as a source in an answer.

The best-known AI crawlers

These are the names you will come across most often:

• GPTBot (OpenAI). Collects pages for training models.
• OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI). Builds the search index for search in ChatGPT.
• ChatGPT-User (OpenAI). Fetches a page when a user in ChatGPT asks for it or when ChatGPT opens a source live.
• PerplexityBot (Perplexity). Indexes pages for Perplexity's search results.
• Perplexity-User (Perplexity). Fetches pages live when a question is asked.
• ClaudeBot (Anthropic). Collects pages for training Claude.
• Claude-User and Claude-SearchBot (Anthropic). For live fetching and search.
• Google-Extended. This is not a separate crawler. It is a token in robots.txt that lets you say whether Google may use your content for Gemini models. Google simply crawls with Googlebot. So you will not see Google-Extended in your logs.

AI companies sometimes change their crawlers. So check the providers' official documentation now and then for the current names.

How to view your server logs

Almost every hosting environment keeps access logs. Where to find them differs per provider. Usually it is one of these places:

1. Your hosting control panel. Look for "logs", "access logs", "statistics" or "raw access logs". You can often download a file per day or per month.
2. Via FTP or SFTP. Many servers have a folder called "logs".
3. Via the command line (SSH). If you have access, you can search the log files directly.

A log line looks roughly like this:

66.249.x.x - - [12/May/2026:10:15:32 +0200] "GET /services/boiler-repair HTTP/1.1" 200 15320 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 ... GPTBot/1.1 ..."

You see the IP address, the time, the requested page, the status code (200 means "success") and at the end the user agent with the bot's name.

If you have SSH access, you can count all AI crawler visits with, for example:

grep -Ei "gptbot|oai-searchbot|chatgpt-user|perplexity|claude" access.log | wc -l

Without a command line, you can also open a log file in a text editor or spreadsheet and search for the bot names.

What do the logs tell you?

Pay particular attention to these points:

• Do the bots visit at all? If you see no AI crawlers whatsoever, check your robots.txt and any firewall or bot protection. Read allowing AI crawlers in robots.txt.
• Which pages do they read? Are your key service pages, your FAQ page and your about page being visited? Or mostly old or unimportant pages?
• Which status codes do they get? Lots of 403 (forbidden), 404 (not found) or 500 (server error) means the bot cannot read your content.
• Live visits. Visits from ChatGPT-User or Perplexity-User suggest that someone was asking a question at that moment that led to your page being opened.

Watch out for fake bots

Anyone can fill in a user agent. Some scrapers pretend to be a well-known bot. That is why the major AI companies publish lists of their crawlers' IP addresses. If you want to be sure a visit is genuine, compare the IP address with that list.

What logs do not tell you

A crawler visit does not mean you are also mentioned in an answer. Logs show that AI can read your page. Whether it then recommends you depends on much more, such as reviews, mentions elsewhere and the quality of your content. To know that, you have to measure the answers themselves. See how to measure whether AI mentions your business.

Frequently asked questions

Should I allow GPTBot?
That is your own choice. GPTBot is for training. Blocking it has no direct effect on search in ChatGPT, which runs via OAI-SearchBot. If you want to appear in AI answers, at least do not block the search and live crawlers.

Do AI crawlers put a load on my website?
Usually it is fine. If you do notice a lot of traffic, ask your hosting provider whether you can limit the crawl rate rather than blocking everything.

From crawling to being mentioned

Your logs tell you whether AI reads your website. HelloGeoLabs does not measure crawler logs, but it does measure what happens next: whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude mention you. Start with the free AI check or follow it every week with GEO tracking.