How to Detect AI Crawlers (GPTBot, Perplexity, Bing) in Server Logs

AI crawlers like GPTBot, PerplexityBot, and BingAI (Bing Chat / Copilot) are now actively crawling the web to collect and train data for generative AI systems. Detecting them in your server logs is essential for understanding how AI systems interact with your content — and for deciding whether to allow or block them. This guide shows how to identify these bots using server logs, user-agent strings, and IP verification.

1. Why Detect AI Crawlers?

Unlike traditional search engine crawlers, AI bots don’t just index — they consume your content for training large language models or answering user queries. By tracking them, you can:

• Understand how much AI traffic your site receives.
• Decide whether to block or monitor AI crawlers via robots.txt.
• Protect sensitive or original content from being reused in AI-generated answers.
• Measure visibility in generative search engines (e.g., Google SGE, Bing Copilot).

2. Key AI Crawlers and Their User Agents

Here are the most active AI-related crawlers you should look for in your server access logs:

CrawlerUser-Agent ExampleGPTBot (OpenAI)Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; GPTBot/1.0; +https://openai.com/gptbot)PerplexityBotMozilla/5.0 (compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/bot)BingAI / Bing ChatMozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)Google-Extended (SGE Data)Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)Anthropic ClaudeBotClaudeBot/1.0 (+https://www.anthropic.com/claudebot)CCBot (Common Crawl)CCBot/2.0 (+https://commoncrawl.org/faq/)

Keep in mind that AI crawlers can also use standard crawlers (like Googlebot) for data ingestion through the Google-Extended mechanism, so it’s important to check for this specifically.

3. How to Detect AI Bots in Apache or Nginx Logs

Apache Example

In Apache, your access log entries might look like this:

66.249.66.1 - - [07/Oct/2025:15:21:10 +0000] "GET /blog/article HTTP/1.1" 200 532 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; GPTBot/1.0; +https://openai.com/gptbot)"


To find AI crawlers, run a simple grep command:

grep -Ei "GPTBot|PerplexityBot|bingbot|Google-Extended|ClaudeBot" /var/log/apache2/access.log


Nginx Example

For Nginx logs, use a similar command:

grep -Ei "GPTBot|PerplexityBot|bingbot|ClaudeBot|CCBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log


You can also use awk or cut to count hits per bot:

grep -Eo "GPTBot|PerplexityBot|bingbot" /var/log/nginx/access.log | sort | uniq -c


4. IP Verification (to Avoid Spoofing)

Some bots can fake user-agent strings. To verify authenticity, check if IPs belong to official ranges:

• GPTBot IP verification: OpenAI IP ranges
• Bingbot verification: Use Microsoft’s tool → Verify Bingbot
• Googlebot / Google-Extended: Reverse DNS lookup ending with .googlebot.com

Example for Linux command line verification:

host 52.233.106.11


If the result ends in a trusted domain (e.g., openai.com or bing.com), the bot is authentic.

5. Detecting AI Crawlers in Analytics Tools

If you use analytics platforms like GA4 or Matomo, these bots won’t appear under “user sessions,” but you can monitor them using server-based tracking or backend analytics dashboards. Integrate detection into your logs pipeline:

• Create a filter to flag requests from known AI bot user agents.
• Store and visualize results in tools like Grafana or Data Studio.
• Tag detected AI traffic as “AI Crawlers” in GA4 via Measurement Protocol if you collect server events.

6. Optional: Blocking or Controlling AI Crawlers

If you wish to restrict AI content scraping, use robots.txt directives:

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /


However, note that not all crawlers (especially unofficial or third-party AI scrapers) will honor robots.txt rules.

7. Automating AI Crawler Monitoring

For ongoing tracking, automate with a simple script or log analyzer:

#!/bin/bash
LOG="/var/log/nginx/access.log"
grep -Ei "GPTBot|PerplexityBot|ClaudeBot|bingbot|CCBot" $LOG | awk '{print $1, $12}' | sort | uniq -c


Schedule it as a cron job to run daily and output stats to a dashboard. For advanced analysis, feed data into BigQuery or Elasticsearch for visualization and trend tracking.

8. Conclusion

Detecting AI crawlers is vital for understanding how AI models interact with your content and for maintaining control over what’s being indexed or reused in generative systems. By monitoring user-agent patterns, verifying IPs, and automating log analysis, you can build a clear picture of your site’s exposure to AI crawlers and take informed action — whether to allow, restrict, or analyze them for strategic insights.

“Every visit from an AI crawler is a data transaction — knowing when and how it happens gives you control over your digital footprint.”