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AI bots are three different species, and each maps to a different stage of AI visibility. Peec’s server-log guide (full guide, Jun 2026) distinguishes:
  • Training bots (e.g. GPTBot, Common Crawl) crawl to collect model training data — they shape what the model knows by default. Common Crawl alone holds 300+ billion pages since 2008, and over 80% of GPT-3’s training data came from a filtered version of it; it tags pages with PageRank-style importance scores. Blocked training bots mean absence from the model’s baseline knowledge, and gaps cannot be fixed retroactively — training data only refreshes at retraining.
  • Search/indexing bots (e.g. OAI-SearchBot) index content so it can be retrieved and cited in AI search. Blocked indexing bots mean your content never enters the retrieval pool, regardless of quality.
  • User-query/retrieval bots (e.g. ChatGPT-User) fetch a specific page in real time because a user asked — request-driven, the highest-intent signal of the three.
Unblocking one does not unblock the others: OAI-SearchBot (search) and GPTBot (training) are separate user-agents with separate robots.txt rules — Deep Research obeys OAI-SearchBot specifically (see How Deep Research reads your site). The healthiest log pattern is all three bot types present. How to act on the log data: Server logs for AI search. Source: Why server logs are crucial for AI search strategy, Peec (Tomek Rudzki), Jun 2026.