---
title: "AI search crawler: plain-language definition | Am I Ready for Agents?"
description: "AI search crawler: A crawler that indexes pages so an AI search product can answer questions and cite them later. Dated and sourced."
canonical: https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/ai-search-crawler
site: "Am I Ready for Agents?"
last_updated: 2026-11-04
section: "Glossary"
---

# AI search crawler: plain-language definition | Am I Ready for Agents?

> AI search crawler: A crawler that indexes pages so an AI search product can answer questions and cite them later. Dated and sourced.

Source: https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/ai-search-crawler
Site: Am I Ready for Agents?
Last reviewed: 2026-11-04

# AI search crawler

## In short

Blocking an AI search crawler removes you from the index an AI answer is built from, so decide it deliberately. Which AI bots and agents to let in goes into the detail. Compare it with Training crawler and Mixed-use crawler. Cloudflare reported fewer than 1 percent of its sites block search crawlers (30 Sep 2026).

## Definition

A crawler that indexes pages so an AI search product can answer questions and cite them later.

## A dated example

-   Read 4 Nov 2026
    
    Cloudflare reported fewer than 1 percent of its sites block search crawlers (30 Sep 2026).
    
    [Cloudflare: The Internet has a second audience (30 Sep 2026)](https://blog.cloudflare.com/agentic-web/), read 4 Nov 2026
    

## Where it matters

Blocking it removes you from the index an AI answer is built from, so decide it deliberately.

-   [Which AI bots and agents to let in](https://amireadyforagents.com/decisions/which-bots-to-allow)

## Related terms

-   [Training crawler](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/training-crawler)A crawler that takes pages to train or fine-tune an AI model.
-   [Mixed-use crawler](https://amireadyforagents.com/glossary/mixed-use-crawler)One crawler that does both search indexing and AI training, so refusing one used to mean refusing the other.

## Sources

1.  [Cloudflare: The Internet has a second audience (30 Sep 2026)](https://blog.cloudflare.com/agentic-web/) (blog.cloudflare.com/agentic-web), read 4 Nov 2026.

Last reviewed 4 November 2026

Reviewed 4 November 2026. [1 source](#sources), each with the day it was read.