# Is ChatGPT blocked from your store?

> Free check: does your robots.txt block ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Google's AI crawlers? See allowed or blocked per crawler, the exact lines responsible and the fix.

Free ai crawler checker by catalogaudit: https://catalogaudit.app/ai-crawler-checker (no signup, nothing stored beyond a salted IP hash used for daily limits).

## What it checks

- Reads your robots.txt the way AI search and shopping crawlers do (RFC 9309 matching)
- Allowed or blocked for 8 AI search and assistant crawlers and 6 AI training crawlers
- Shows the exact robots.txt lines responsible
- Gives the robots.txt fix, for Shopify's robots.txt.liquid

## Questions

### Should I block GPTBot and other AI crawlers?

That depends on which. Training crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot, Google-Extended) only collect data for model training, so blocking them is a policy choice and doesn't remove you from shopping answers. Search and assistant crawlers (OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, Claude-SearchBot) are what fetch your pages when a shopper asks for a recommendation: blocking them keeps your products out of those answers.

### How do I edit robots.txt on Shopify?

In your admin go to Online Store, Themes, the three dots, Edit code, and add a template called robots.txt.liquid. Shopify generates the default rules from it; add your own groups below them. Shopify's default file doesn't block AI crawlers, so a block usually comes from an app, an old edit to that template, or your CDN.

### My robots.txt allows everything but ChatGPT still can't see my store. Why?

robots.txt is only a request. A firewall or bot-protection setting (Cloudflare's Bot Fight Mode, a security app) can answer AI crawlers with HTTP 403 whatever robots.txt says. If this tool can read your robots.txt but the full audit can't read your products, that is usually why.

## Next

- Run the free full audit, which includes these checks and more: https://catalogaudit.app/#audit
- More free tools: https://catalogaudit.app/tools
- Talk to us: hello@catalogaudit.app