For decades, traditional search engine bots like Googlebot have dominated web crawling. But over the past year, artificial intelligence bots have entered the scene in force. These new crawlers aren’t indexing pages for search results - they’re gathering content to train large language models and power generative AI tools. And they’re doing it fast.
But here’s the challenge: these AI crawlers are still learning how to behave, and they’re using up significant server resources along the way.
This article explains what’s happening behind the scenes, how AI crawlers differ from SEO and search engine bots, and what website owners need to watch out for as AI assistants reshape the crawling landscape.
AI crawlers are automated bots deployed by companies like OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and others to gather public web data for AI training and generation. Their goal isn’t to drive traffic to websites, but to help AI systems learn how to respond to user prompts.
In 2023 and 2024, tools like GPTBot, AmazonBot, and Google’s AI crawlers surged in activity. What used to be dominated by search engine bots is now shifting.
A snapshot of traffic data from providers like Cloudflare reveals a massive uptick in AI bot activity - now second only to traditional search crawlers.
We can group the major crawlers into three categories:
These include Googlebot, Bingbot, and other bots that index websites to serve results in traditional search engines. They’re still the top source of crawler traffic today.
Bots like GPTBot (OpenAI), AmazonBot, and Google’s AI crawlers are scraping websites to improve AI model performance. Their crawl rates have grown rapidly, and they’re expected to overtake search engine bots in the near future.
SEO bots from tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz crawl the web to help marketers analyze and optimize their websites. Ahrefsbot remains the most active of these by far.
Unlike search engines, AI bots don’t currently offer much in return to website owners. They’re taking up bandwidth, server resources, and possibly valuable content - without driving traffic or visibility.
This imbalance is leading many high-traffic websites to block AI crawlers entirely. In fact, data shows that AI bots are increasingly being denied access to the top 1 million websites globally.
The biggest complaints from site owners include:
One promising solution? IndexNow.
This protocol allows website owners to notify participating search engines when content is added, updated, or deleted - dramatically reducing the need for constant crawling.
Using IndexNow benefits everyone:
If you haven’t implemented IndexNow yet, now is a good time to explore it.
If current trends continue, yes. AI bots are growing faster than any other type of crawler and could become the dominant force in web indexing by 2026.
One example: GPTBot traffic has surged in 2025, nearly catching up with Bingbot and other established search engine bots in terms of request volume. The growth curve is steep, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing.
Unlike SEO bots, which have remained relatively stable, AI bots are on track to change how the web is indexed, stored, and served up.
As AI crawlers become more common, it’s crucial for site owners and marketers to:
There’s an unspoken agreement between search engines and website owners: search engines crawl content in exchange for driving traffic. But AI bots are starting to violate that social contract by taking without giving back.
As AI search traffic grows, companies behind these bots will need to step up - offering referral data, visibility tools, and real value to website creators. Until then, expect more sites to limit or block these crawlers altogether.
The crawling wars have begun. And this time, it’s not just about SEO - it’s about who controls the flow of information on the internet.