AI crawler audit tools compared

Checked 2026-10-13 by OpenKrill. 10 tools, one of them ours.

Short answer

• Pick Screaming Frog if a person needs a whole-site crawl as GPTBot or ClaudeBot on their own machine.
• Pick Semrush or Ahrefs if you already use one and want AI crawler rules next to rankings.
• Pick Cloudflare AI Crawl Control if your site runs on Cloudflare and you want to see and block AI crawlers at the edge.
• Pick the AI Bot Access Testing Tool to fetch up to 100 URLs as a chosen AI bot, free and by hand.
• Pick Site SEO & AI Crawler Audit if an agent needs robots.txt rules for 14 named AI crawlers plus page tags and redirects, with no key; it does not fetch as each bot.

The tools side by side

Answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude (API with web search), asked on 2026-10-13 and 2026-10-14. A small sample: read it as a hint, not a ranking. Rows named in 0 answers were added by us, ours included.

The address or command to connect each tool is in Each tool in detail.

What each tool covers

"Not stated" means the tool's own pages do not say, not that the answer is no.

Our test

We asked every hosted tool we could call without an account, a key or an install the same question, with the same inputs. Where that left our tool with no rival, we also ran the rivals a person can use, in their web form, their chat app or their API. Each tested row says how it was run. We wrote down the official answer for each input first, then scored each tool against it on 2026-10-13. The official source an answer comes from is not scored against itself, and an input outside a tool's job is not sent to it, so that tool is scored on the inputs in its scope.

The question: Does this site's robots.txt block GPTBot from the home page? Truth from each robots.txt read on 2026-10-13 with RFC 9309 matching: use the group that names GPTBot, else the * group; the longest matching rule for / wins, and Allow wins a tie. An answer counts when its blocked or allowed verdict for GPTBot on the home page matches.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/: Blocked: a GPTBot group with Disallow: /. Official record: nytimes.com.
2. https://github.com/: Allowed (harder): the GPTBot group has Allow: /$, which beats its Disallow: / for the home page only. Official record: github.com.
3. https://www.reddit.com/: Blocked: no GPTBot group, and the * group has Disallow: /. Official record: reddit.com.
4. https://www.theguardian.com/: Allowed (harder): GPTBot is not named, while ClaudeBot and about 40 other bots are blocked; the * group does not block /. Official record: theguardian.com.
5. https://medium.com/: Blocked: the GPTBot group has Disallow: / with Allow lines only for /about and similar paths. Official record: medium.com.

• AI Bot Access Testing Tool: 4 of 5 right, 5 answered. Right on 4, with the deciding line (Allow: /$ for github.com). For reddit.com it marked GPTBot allowed with no rule shown, while the robots.txt we read has Disallow: / for every bot; its own fetch of reddit.com got 403 Forbidden. It also fetches each URL as each bot, which a robots.txt read cannot do. One form run returns all 5, so there is no time per input. How it was run: Its web form by hand in a browser, all 5 URLs in one run with its default bots; the GPTBot robots.txt cell was read.
• Site SEO & AI Crawler Audit (ours): 5 of 5 right, 5 answered, median 9.3 s. All 5 right, each with the deciding rule (Allow: /$ for github.com); for the Guardian it read the page it was sent to, /europe, which is also allowed. How it was run: Remote MCP tools/call check_ai_crawler_access at https://sitecheck.openkrill.app/mcp.

Not tested:

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Local install only (desktop app).
• Semrush Site Audit: Needs an account.
• Ahrefs free Site Audit: Needs an account and a verified site.
• SEO Audit Console (houtini-ai): Local install only, and it needs a Google service account.
• Google Search Console MCP (mcp-gsc): Local install only, needs Google sign-in, and it has no GPTBot check.
• AI Crawler Policy Audit (Apify): Needs an account.
• Cloudflare AI Crawl Control: Needs an account, and it works only on a site you serve through Cloudflare.
• SiteAudit MCP (vdalhambra): Local install only.

Every input, official answer and result is in the test data as JSON.

Each tool in detail

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

The pick when a person must crawl a whole site as GPTBot or ClaudeBot, with JavaScript rendering, on their own machine. Above 500 URLs it needs a licence.

Good at: Crawls a whole site as GPTBot, ClaudeBot or another AI user agent, with JavaScript rendering, and flags 300+ SEO issues.

Limit: Free version stops at 500 URLs; custom crawl settings, JavaScript rendering and saved crawls need a paid licence.

How to run the check: Configuration > User-Agent: pick the GPTBot preset or set GPTBot as Robots User-Agent, then crawl the site.

Data: its own crawl of your site, optional Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights APIs

License: Closed source

Semrush Site Audit

For teams that already pay for Semrush and want AI crawler rules next to rankings and 140+ SEO checks. It reads robots.txt rules for 8 AI crawlers.

Good at: Shows which pages robots.txt blocks from 8 major AI crawlers, plus 140+ SEO checks.

Limit: Needs a Semrush account; without the SEO Toolkit an audit stops at 100 pages a month.

How to run the check: Run Site Audit, open the Crawled Pages report and read its Blocked from AI Search check for GPTBot.

Data: Semrush's own crawler (SiteAuditBot) on your site, your robots.txt, checked against 8 major AI crawlers

License: Closed source

Ahrefs free Site Audit

For site owners who can verify their site with Ahrefs and want a free full SEO audit. It flags pages robots.txt blocks for search and AI training bots.

Good at: Free Site Audit checks 170+ SEO issues and flags pages that robots.txt blocks for search bots or AI training bots.

Limit: Free use covers only verified sites, 5,000 crawl credits per project monthly.

How to run the check: Verify your site, run a Site Audit crawl; it flags robots.txt rules that block AI crawlers such as GPTBot.

Data: Ahrefs' own crawler on your verified site, Ahrefs' web index for backlinks and keywords

License: Closed source

SEO Audit Console (houtini-ai)

Good at: Joins Search Console traffic with a live crawl, ranking 99 checks by clicks at stake.

Limit: Needs a Google service account with Search Console access to your own site.

How to run the check: Ask Claude to run an SEO audit on your site; robots-blocked pages appear among the ranked findings.

Data: Google Search Console, its own crawl of your site, DataForSEO (optional), Majestic (optional), Firecrawl and Supadata (optional)

License: Apache-2.0. MCP tools: 51

Repo: houtini-ai/seo-audit, 56 stars, last commit 2026-10-11

Connect: npx -y @houtini/seo-audit-console

Google Search Console MCP (mcp-gsc)

Good at: Brings your real Search Console clicks, indexing and URL inspection into the agent.

Limit: Only sites you own in Search Console; you set up Google OAuth or a service account yourself.

How to run the check: Has no GPTBot check; inspect_url_enhanced shows Google crawl and index status for a page you own.

Data: Google Search Console API (search analytics, URL inspection, sitemaps)

License: MIT. MCP tools: 21

Repo: AminForou/mcp-gsc, 1,915 stars, last commit 2026-09-15

Connect: uvx mcp-search-console

AI Crawler Policy Audit (Apify)

Good at: Reads robots.txt for 25 named AI agents and quotes the matching rule.

Limit: A new community actor with few runs so far; it needs an Apify account and runs on Apify credits.

How to run the check: Run the actor on Apify with a list of domains; each AI agent gets allowed or not, with the rule quoted.

Data: robots.txt for 25 named AI agents, ai.txt, llms.txt and tdmrep.json, noai meta tag and X-Robots-Tag header

License: Closed source. MCP tools: 1

Connect: https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=multiplex/ai-crawl-policy

Cloudflare AI Crawl Control

Good at: Shows which AI crawlers visit your site and lets you allow or block each one at the edge, and tracks robots.txt violations.

Limit: Works only for sites served through Cloudflare; the free plan detects crawlers by user agent only.

How to run the check: In the dashboard pick the domain, open AI Crawl Control, Security tab, then Allow or Block GPTBot in Actions.

Data: Cloudflare traffic for your zone, Cloudflare bot detection

License: Closed source

AI Bot Access Testing Tool

Good at: Free web tool that checks robots.txt, status code and content for a list of up to 100 URLs as the AI bot you pick.

Limit: Tests a URL list you paste rather than crawling the site, and has no API for an agent.

How to run the check: Paste up to 100 URLs, pick GPTBot as the bot and run; it shows the robots.txt result and the status code.

Data: the site's robots.txt, a live request to each URL as the chosen bot

License: Closed source

SiteAudit MCP (vdalhambra)

Good at: No key: SEO, security headers, Lighthouse and broken links for one URL.

Limit: Checks one URL at a time; the repo last changed in April 2026.

How to run the check: Ask the agent to call check_robots_txt with the site URL; it parses the rules but gives no per-bot verdict.

Data: the page's HTML, headers and TLS certificate, the site's robots.txt, Google PageSpeed Insights API

License: MIT. MCP tools: 8

Repo: vdalhambra/siteaudit-mcp, 5 stars, last commit 2026-04-17

Connect: uvx --from siteaudit-mcp siteaudit

Site SEO & AI Crawler Audit (ours)

Good at: Reads robots.txt rules for 14 named AI crawlers, plus page tags, redirects and AI readiness, with no key.

Limit: Closed source from one small vendor, no SLA stated; reads robots.txt only and does not fetch as each bot or test a firewall.

How to run the check: Ask the agent to call check_ai_crawler_access with the page URL; the GPTBot row gives allowed or not and the rule.

Data: the site's robots.txt, HTTP headers, redirects and HTML, the site's sitemap, llms.txt and agents.md, certificate transparency logs and DNS (exposure_check only)

License: Closed source. MCP tools: 8

Repo: n/a (no public repo)

Connect: https://sitecheck.openkrill.app/mcp

How we compared

On 2026-10-13 we asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude (API with web search) six questions about AI crawler audit tools, three "what is the best tool" questions and three "which MCP server should I use" questions:

1. What is the best tool to check whether AI crawlers like GPTBot and ClaudeBot can access my website?
2. Which tool should I use to audit my site for SEO and AI search visibility? Give me your top 3.
3. What are the best AI crawler access and AI SEO audit tools right now?
4. Which SEO audit or AI crawler check MCP server should I use with my AI agent?
5. What is the best MCP server for SEO audits and AI crawler access checks for Claude or ChatGPT?
6. I want my AI agent to audit a website for SEO and AI crawlers. Which MCP should I install?

23 answers came back with text we could read. "Named in AI answers" counts the answers that named the tool in their text or linked to it; pages an app read but did not cite do not count. The rows are the tools those answers named most, plus tools a reader would expect that the answers missed.

"Right in our test" comes from the measured test above. Every other fact comes from the tool's own page, docs or GitHub repo on the same day. Stars and commit dates change every week, so check the repo before you decide.

OpenKrill makes one of the tools on this page. Its row is sorted by the same count, tested with the same inputs and its limits are listed the same way.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check if ChatGPT or Claude can crawl my site?

Their crawlers follow robots.txt, so start there. Then fetch the page as each crawler, because a firewall or bot rule can block a bot that robots.txt allows. Screaming Frog and the AI Bot Access Testing Tool do that fetch.

Is a robots.txt reader enough?

Not always. It shows what you asked crawlers to do. It does not show a block from a firewall, a CDN bot setting or a login wall.

Which of these tools need an account?

Semrush, Ahrefs, Cloudflare, the Search Console tools and the Apify actor need an account. Site SEO & AI Crawler Audit, SiteAudit MCP and the AI Bot Access Testing Tool need none, and Screaming Frog is free up to 500 URLs.

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OpenKrill builds live-data tools for AI agents, with a human check on the result.