Robots.txt Validator
Validate your robots.txt file for syntax correctness, check that important AI crawlers (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity) have proper access, and identify accidental blocking.
How to Use the Robots.txt Validator
The Robots.txt Validator checks your robots.txt for syntax errors, verifies that major AI crawlers including ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity have proper access, and identifies rules that accidentally block important sections. A single misplaced wildcard in this file can hide an entire directory from every engine at once.
AI crawler access worth auditing
Traditional SEO auditing checks Googlebot and Bingbot and stops there. AI platforms run their own crawlers, and a robots.txt written years ago may say nothing about them or block them through a broad wildcard group. The validator lists the major AI user agents and shows what each one is allowed to fetch, so you can make a deliberate decision about AI access instead of inheriting whatever the default template shipped with.
Common syntax errors and accidental blocks
A missing trailing slash, a disallow rule written above its user-agent group, or a pattern that matches more than intended are the frequent culprits. The most expensive mistake is a blanket disallow on images or scripts, which renders pages incompletely for every crawler. The report points at the exact line number, so corrections take minutes. Validate after every deployment that touches server configuration or hosting defaults.
How the Robots.txt Validator Works
Enter URL
Provide your website URL to check robots.txt.
Syntax Validation
We check for syntax errors and common misconfigurations.
AI Crawler Report
See which AI crawlers are allowed or blocked.
Why Use This Tool
AI Crawler Focus
Specifically checks access for ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity bots.
Error Detection
Find syntax errors that could invalidate your entire robots.txt.
Accidental Blocking
Detect overly restrictive rules that block important resources.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why check AI crawler access?▼
If your robots.txt blocks GPTBot, Claude, or PerplexityBot, you won't appear in AI search results.
What syntax errors do you check for?▼
Invalid directives, missing user-agent, malformed patterns, and conflicting rules.
How accurate are the results?▼
Our tools use multiple AI engines and real-time data sources to provide accurate, up-to-date analysis.
Can I use the results commercially?▼
Yes, all results are yours to use for any purpose.
Where does robots.txt live?▼
At the domain root, resolving to yourdomain.com/robots.txt as plain text. It must be publicly reachable without authentication; otherwise crawlers treat the whole site as disallowed.
Should I allow all AI crawlers?▼
That depends on your strategy. Allowing them lets AI platforms read and potentially cite your content, which supports visibility in AI answers. Blocking them keeps content out of AI responses but also out of the citations that send referral traffic.
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