AI Citations & Crawlers
Understand how AI assistants source and reference web content, which crawlers we track, and what citations mean for your brand's visibility.
Which AI assistants does Optiview track?
Optiview monitors citation behavior across the major AI assistants that people use for search and discovery:
Coming soon: Google AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, and other emerging AI search platforms as they expose citation metadata.
How do AI crawlers differ from search crawlers?
While both visit your site, their purposes and priorities are fundamentally different:
Search Engine Crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot)
- Goal: Index content to rank it in search results
- What they value: Keywords, backlinks, page authority
- Output: Ranking position (1-10 on SERPs)
- Frequency: Regular, predictable crawl schedules
AI Training Crawlers (GPTBot, Claude-Web, etc.)
- Goal: Extract knowledge to train language models OR ground real-time answers
- What they value: Clarity, structure, factual density, answerability
- Output: Whether you get cited in AI-generated answers
- Frequency: Less predictable; depends on model refresh cycles
Key insight: AI crawlers prioritize machine comprehension over keyword matching. Content optimized for humans and structured for machines performs best.
What is a "citation" in this context?
A citation occurs when an AI assistant attributes an answer, snippet, or recommendation to your domain—either directly or indirectly.
Direct citations explicitly mention your URL or brand:
"According to example.com, the best practice for X is..."
Indirect citations use your content without explicit attribution (but still reflect your information):
"The process involves three steps: A, B, and C..." (where your page is the only source describing these specific steps)
Optiview tracks both types by running targeted queries and analyzing which sources AI models cite.
Which AI crawlers does Optiview track?
We monitor visits from all major AI training and grounding bots:
Note: We respect your robots.txt. If you've blocked these bots, we'll detect that and alert you to potential visibility loss.
Can I increase my citations?
Yes! Citation frequency is largely controllable. Focus on these levers:
- Improve content clarity: AI models favor concise, factual answers over marketing fluff. Lead with clear statements, not vague value propositions.
- Use question-answer formats: Structure content as Q&A pairs. This directly maps to how users query AI assistants.
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Implement FAQ schema:
FAQPageandQAPageJSON-LD markup signals to AI that your content is authoritative and structured. - Build authoritative references: Get cited by trusted sources (news, academic sites, industry publications). AI models weight citations from high-authority domains.
- Ensure crawler access: Verify AI bots can crawl your site (check robots.txt and firewall rules).
- Optimize for answerability: Every page should clearly answer at least one specific question.
Timeline: Citation changes lag by 2-8 weeks as AI models refresh their grounding data. Be patient and track improvements over time.
Should I block AI crawlers?
Generally, no. Blocking AI crawlers prevents your content from appearing in AI search results—effectively making you invisible to a rapidly growing user base.
However, you might block them if:
- You have proprietary content you don't want in AI training datasets
- Your business model depends on users visiting your site (paywalls, ads)
- Your server infrastructure can't handle the extra crawler traffic
- You're in a highly regulated industry with strict data usage policies
How to block: Add to your robots.txt:
User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: / User-agent: ClaudeBot Disallow: / User-agent: CCBot Disallow: /
Our recommendation: Allow AI crawlers unless you have a specific business reason not to. The visibility benefits typically outweigh the costs.