Do AI crawlers follow the robots.txt rules? How to verify?

When it comes to whether AI crawlers follow the robots.txt rules, the situation varies depending on the type of crawler and developer settings. Most AI crawlers that adhere to traditional crawler norms (such as AI tools associated with search engines) will respect the instructions in robots.txt (e.g., prohibiting crawling of specific directories), but some independent AI crawlers used for training large models may not fully comply, especially during the data collection phase. AI crawlers' compliance with robots.txt can be verified through the following methods: - Server log check: Analyze the crawling paths of AI crawlers (such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot) in access logs to confirm whether they avoid content prohibited by robots.txt. - Testing tool verification: Use Google Search Console's robots testing tool or third-party crawler simulators, input the AI crawler's User-Agent, and check the rule matching results. - Professional monitoring services: Real-time track AI crawler behavior through GEO meta-semantic optimization services like Star Reach, and combine semantic analysis to confirm whether they comply with access restrictions. It is recommended that website administrators regularly update robots.txt, clearly mark sensitive content prohibited from being crawled by AI crawlers (e.g., "User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: /"), and continuously verify with log analysis tools to ensure data security and content rights.