The evolution of Artificial Intelligence has brought about enormous changes in the field of digital marketing, especially when it comes to SEO. Search engines now use increasingly sophisticated AI bots to detect and index content, while new types of crawlers, such as GPTBot, aim to collect data in order to «train» language models. This modern ecosystem is a challenge for anyone involved in website optimization (SEO Greece), as more and more site owners are taking measures to protect their content from intrusive AI bots.
A recent study published on Ahrefs examined the extent to which large websites block or allow AI bots through robots.txt files. According to the results, GPTBot was blocked by approximately 10% of the top 100,000 websites, while Sogou Web Spider faced a block rate of over 27%, and CCBot recorded approximately 6.9% blocks. Although these numbers seem relatively small, the upward trend in blocking AI bots is real and will directly affect organizations, professionals, and methods for promoting websites. Many companies fear that their data will be used without permission or that their server resources will be overloaded. In this article, we will analyze how AI bot bans are implemented at the SEO level, what impact this has on your strategy, and how you can protect the SEO content you create.
Why websites block AI bots
The primary reason websites decide to restrict access to certain AI bots is to protect intellectual property. Although these tools often only perform direct detection, there is concern that in the long term, the content will feed new AI platforms without the content creators being asked or compensated. Of course, a second reason is the potential impact on server performance. Numerous requests may overload the website, requiring resources to serve regular AI detection instead of serving actual visitors.
In addition, some businesses want to maintain control of their brand, especially if they have focused on short-term or long-term SEO strategies. For example, a company that invests carefully in e-shop SEO to increase organic traffic fears losing the exclusivity of its content. After all, all these moves are in line with the general perception of the empowerment and autonomy of websites, which aspire to maintain high-quality content on their own terms.
How do exclusions affect SEO strategy?
The first thought of many professionals involved in website optimization is whether blocking certain AI bots can harm a site's appearance in search results. It is important to clarify that the most common bots, such as Googlebots, Bingbots, and other search engines, are not usually confused with bots used to train AI models. This means that your decision to block, for example, GPTBot does not mean that Googlebot will ignore your content or harm your Google ranking.
However, simply configuring robots.txt is not always enough to fully protect your business, especially if you have high-level SEO content or are heavily involved in digital marketing platforms. In cases where a block is not measured, certain SEO tools (e.g., third-party crawlers that provide you with analytics or insights) may also be blocked, which may negatively affect website promotion and your ability to measure its performance.
Statistics and surveys
As mentioned above, Ahrefs has recorded that GPTBot has a block rate of approximately 10% on the top 100,000 websites worldwide. The reasons we cited are content protection and server resources, but the geography of the ban is also interesting. Often, large news organizations or high-profile platforms have increased block rates, while other smaller businesses remain neutral.
At the same time, the detection rate of an AI bot is variable. Some bots make massive requests for a short period of time and then disappear, while others—such as CommonCrawl—operate at more sporadic intervals. If your business targets multiple audiences through SEO strategies that include content in different languages or serves dynamic pages, monitoring your server logs will give you a better picture of any excessive activity (spikes) and help you configure your robots.txt file correctly.
Content Protection Guide
Step 1: Analyze the logs
Before you start blocking all AI bots, make sure you know which bots are visiting your site. By analyzing your server logs, you will find user agent names and request frequencies. If you find that a particular bot is consuming disproportionate resources, it may be time to review its access policy.
Step 2: Use robots.txt correctly
Robots.txt is a strategy based on the logic of search engine optimization (SEO). Enter the names of the AI bots you want to keep off your site. For example, if you want to block GPTBot, add clear commands «User-agent: GPTBot, Disallow: /». This way, the crawler receives a clear message not to submit requests.
Step 3: Identify important pages
Not all pages are equally important. In some cases, you may not mind sharing certain aspects of your site, such as pages that are not required for keyword research or pages that are well-known and open to the public. However, critical knowledge repositories, editorial content, or premium e-shop sections probably need greater protection to prevent unauthorized republication or copyright infringement.
Step 4: Combine technical SEO with additional security measures
Technical SEO is not limited to checking robots.txt. Instead, you will probably need to consider additional security measures, such as captcha to prevent mass data extraction, as well as special server settings that filter malicious bots based on IP or origin. With a careful combination of tools, you can ensure that important search engines remain accessible without compromising your own content.
As artificial intelligence and chatbots expand, concerns about intellectual property and content exploitation are also growing. For any professional or e-shop owner involved in SEO—especially those focused on e-shop SEO, website promotion, or search engine optimization—these changes affect content visibility and protection. SEO strategies are evolving in an ever-changing environment, where managing AI bots is not just a technical issue; it is a critical strategic point.
With the right methodology, such as monitoring server logs, organically integrating robots.txt, and using advanced security settings, you can achieve better SEO results while maintaining control over bot filtering. The exact gains in Google ranking will depend on how balanced you integrate all these measures, but also on how consistent you are in creating quality content. SEO content, after all, remains a key pillar for maximizing organic traffic. In conclusion, staying up to date and adapting to new trends is the ideal guide for those aiming to increase organic traffic and, by extension, maintain a high level of prestige in the market.
