Free tool, no email
Is your website blocking ChatGPT?
Put in your website. In about ten seconds you'll see whether ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini are allowed to read it, and if not, what is stopping them and who can fix it.
Takes about ten seconds. We only read your homepage and robots.txt. Nothing is stored and there is no email.
Three ways a site turns the AI away
- 01
- robots.txt. A text file at yoursite.com/robots.txt. A "Disallow: /" under GPTBot, ClaudeBot or PerplexityBot tells that crawler to stay out. Some website builders add these lines when an "AI crawlers" or "AI training" switch is turned on in settings.
- 02
- A firewall or security plugin. Blocks visitors by name. The site works for people and for Google, but a crawler that says "I'm ClaudeBot" gets 403 Forbidden. Nobody chose it; a plugin's "block bad bots" list did.
- 03
- A robot check from the host. A "checking the site connection security" screen in front of the site. Hosts often show it to some networks and not others, so it can stop a crawler on one day and not the next. If the checker reports one, ask your host what its bot protection does with the AI crawlers.
We built this after testing contractor websites for our AI visibility research: the owners of the sites that blocked the crawlers didn't know. If the checker finds a block, fixing it is usually a setting, not a rebuild. If everything is open and the assistants still don't name you, the AI search visibility work is about what your pages say and where else you're listed.
Questions
Should a contractor let the AI crawlers in?
If you want ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini to be able to recommend you, yes. They answer from what they can read. A site that turns their crawlers away leaves them to build the answer from directories, review sites and your competitors' pages. Some businesses block them on purpose to keep their writing out of AI training; for a local contractor that trade is rarely worth it.
How common is this?
More common than owners think. In our October 2026 test of 13 plumbing companies that hold Google's first page in their cities, 2 answered Claude's crawler with 403 Forbidden while serving the page to everyone else. In a separate check of 40 contractor websites the same week, 3 returned errors to the AI crawlers while serving the page to browsers and Google.
Is Google-Extended the same as Googlebot?
No. Googlebot is ordinary Google Search. Google-Extended is only a robots.txt switch that says whether Google may use your pages for its AI models such as Gemini. Blocking Google-Extended does not take you out of Google Search.
Why might the result differ from what the real crawlers see?
The checker visits from our server, in a data center like the ones the real crawlers use, and identifies as each crawler. Real crawlers come from their companies' own networks, and a few hosts let verified crawler addresses through while blocking impostors, or treat one network differently from another. So a block here means your site's rules turn that crawler's name away from a data center. Your host can confirm what happens to the real one.
If every crawler gets in, will the AI recommend me?
Not by itself. Being readable is the door, not the room. Whether an assistant names you depends on what your pages say (services, towns, proof) and on what directories, reviews and other sites say about you. The free AI visibility test shows you the actual answers.
Readable is step one
Want to know what the assistants actually say about you? We run the five questions and send every answer word for word.
Or call (254) 640-7180. Fixed scope, written price, everything in your name.