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A bot’s user-agent string can tell you what it claims to be, but it cannot prove who sent the request. To verify an AI crawler, keep the request’s source IP and compare it with the crawler operator’s published IP ranges or follow that operator’s documented DNS-verification procedure. Treat a matching user-agent as a log filter—not authentication.

What a user-agent can—and cannot—tell you

Start by filtering access logs for names such as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User or PerplexityBot. These strings help identify the verification instructions to consult. They are supplied by the requester, however, and another client can copy them. Google warns that the HTTP user-agent used by Googlebot is often spoofed by other crawlers (Google Search Central: What Is Googlebot).

For each matching request, retain the source IP address along with the user-agent and request details. A request claiming to be a known crawler but coming from an address outside the operator’s documented infrastructure is not verified by its label alone. Do not treat user-agent matching as an allowlist rule.

Verify a claimed crawler in your logs

  1. Filter by the claimed name. Search your access logs for the relevant token. Cloudflare’s bot reference maps common names to their operators and categories (Cloudflare bot reference).
  2. Record the source IP. Keep the IP associated with each request so you can compare it with the operator’s current verification data. The user-agent helps select the right instructions; it does not authenticate the request.
  3. Check the operator’s published IP list, if available. Use a list provided or documented by the crawler operator, not an unverified third-party list. Cloudflare’s validation guidance calls for an owner-provided list that is public, stable, limited to that owner, and paired with an appropriate user-agent pattern (Cloudflare: Verified bots). OpenAI publishes separate IP-list links for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User in its crawler documentation (OpenAI crawler overview).
  4. Use DNS verification only where the operator documents it. For Google, reverse-resolve the logged IP, confirm that the resulting hostname ends in googlebot.com, google.com or googleusercontent.com, then resolve that hostname forward. The forward lookup must return the original IP. Google also provides published crawler and fetcher IP ranges for automated matching (Google: Verify Googlebot and other Google crawlers).
  5. Classify purpose separately from identity. Record whether a verified request is for search, potential training data collection or a user-directed fetch. A verified identity does not make those functions interchangeable.
  6. Refresh verification data before enforcing a lasting policy. Operator IP lists and crawler documentation can change. A stale list can cause a legitimate request to be misclassified; accepting any request with a familiar user-agent can admit a spoofed one.

What the major crawler names mean

Several operators publish distinct names for different request types. Preserve those distinctions in log reports and access policies rather than grouping every request from an operator under a single “AI bot” label.

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OpenAI

OpenAI describes GPTBot as crawling content that may be used to train foundation models, OAI-SearchBot as helping surface sites in ChatGPT search, and ChatGPT-User as fetching a page in response to a user action rather than automatically crawling the web. The documentation provides separate IP lists for these request classes (OpenAI crawler overview).

Anthropic

Anthropic distinguishes ClaudeBot for potential model-development data collection, Claude-SearchBot for improving search responses and Claude-User for user-initiated page access. Anthropic says its bots honor robots.txt directives. It also cautions that blocking crawler IPs may not reliably or persistently express an opt-out, since doing so can prevent a crawler from reading robots.txt (Anthropic Help Center: Does Anthropic crawl data from the web?).

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Other listed bots

Cloudflare’s reference lists PerplexityBot as well as the OpenAI and Anthropic names above, with operator and category information. Use the relevant operator’s own verification method for a claimed crawler; a name appearing in a reference list does not authenticate an individual request (Cloudflare bot reference).

Choosing a verification method

  • Authority: Prefer an IP list hosted or documented by the crawler operator. Cloudflare’s guidance calls for a list supplied by the bot owner, rather than relying on an independent list.
  • Specificity: Check that the documented addresses are dedicated to that owner and that the user-agent pattern is appropriately specific.
  • Verifiability: For a documented DNS method, confirm both the reverse lookup and forward lookup. Google’s procedure requires the hostname to have an accepted Google suffix and resolve back to the original IP.
  • Purpose: Keep search, training-related crawling and user-initiated fetches distinct when the operator publishes separate identities for them.
  • Freshness: Check the operator’s current documentation before applying or renewing a permanent rule. Cloudflare’s IP-validation page was last updated April 15, 2026, and its bot reference April 23, 2026; Google’s verification guidance was last updated March 20, 2026. These dates are not a substitute for checking the live documentation.
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Identity is not the same as acceptable behavior

Verification answers whether a request matches an operator’s documented identity method. It does not establish that the request rate is reasonable or that the crawler follows your site’s directions. Cloudflare separates bot identity validation from behavior categories such as search, agent and training, and says verified bots should behave non-abusively, respect robots.txt and crawl directives, and maintain reasonable request rates (Cloudflare: Verified bots; Cloudflare bot concepts).

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For operational monitoring, record verification status separately from purpose and observed behavior. That makes it possible to distinguish a spoofed request from a verified crawler, and to evaluate a verified crawler’s activity without assuming that identity alone settles whether it should be allowed.

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