Miallies
Are You Accidentally Blocking ChatGPT From Your Own Store?
One line in a file you've never opened can make you invisible to AI search. It's usually there by accident. Here's how to find it.
There is a tiny file on every website called robots.txt. You have never opened it. That's normal.
It's a list of instructions for bots — "you can look here, don't look there". And somewhere along the way, a lot of stores quietly picked up a line that says no AI crawlers allowed: no GPTBot (ChatGPT), no Google-Extended (Google's AI), no PerplexityBot.
Sometimes a privacy-minded developer added it on purpose. More often an app or a template dropped it in and nobody noticed. Either way, the result is the same: the fastest-growing way people find products, and you've locked the door.
How to check it in 20 seconds
Go to yourstore.com/robots.txt (just type it in the address bar).
Search the page for: GPTBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot.
- Not mentioned at all → you're fine, they're allowed in.
- Mentioned with
Disallow: /under them → you're blocking them.
Paste this into your fav AI
Here is my robots.txt file:
[PASTE THE WHOLE THING]
Tell me plainly:
1. Am I blocking any AI crawlers (GPTBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot, CCBot)?
2. Am I blocking any normal search engines by accident?
3. If I am blocking something I shouldn't, exactly which lines do I remove?
Letting AI read your store is free and takes one edit. Being invisible to it is the expensive option.
Copies only the prompt text above.