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Is ChatGPT blocked from your Squarespace site? A 15-minute self-test

Your robots.txt names GPTBot, but that doesn't mean it's blocked. A 15-minute self-test for Squarespace sites: crawler settings, what AI can read, and what to fix.

9 min readBy the Sitector team

You opened yoursite.com/robots.txt, saw GPTBot and ClaudeBot in a long list, and got a sinking feeling. Or an SEO checker told you "AI crawlers blocked." Or Squarespace's new AI Visibility panel said Not mentioned.

It's one of the most common questions on the Squarespace Forum right now, and the answers there are often wrong or vague. So here's a test you can run yourself. It takes about 15 minutes and you don't need to write any code.

The short answer: Probably not. Squarespace's default robots.txt names a long list of AI crawlers, but in the default setup those names share the same rules as every other bot, so they're allowed in. On a standard Squarespace setup, you're only blocking AI if someone ticked one of two boxes in Settings → Website → Crawlers. (If your domain runs through a service like Cloudflare, check there too; see Step 2.) And even when AI can reach your site, whether it quotes you depends on what's written on the page. The steps below check both.

What you'll need: your site's address, the Chrome browser, and 15 minutes.

Step 1: Check the two boxes that actually block bots (2 minutes)

Go to Settings → Website → Crawlers. There are two checkboxes, and they do very different things.

"Block known artificial intelligence crawlers"

Ticking this blocks the AI bots on Squarespace's list: 26 as of September 2026 (the help article has the current list). The catch is which bots are on that list. Most AI companies now run separate bots for separate jobs: one collects pages to train their models, and others fetch pages to answer questions in search. Squarespace's list mostly covers the first kind.

Bot Company What it does Covered by Squarespace's checkbox?
GPTBot OpenAI Collects pages for model training ✅ Yes
OAI-SearchBot OpenAI Decides whether you can appear in ChatGPT search answers ❌ No
ChatGPT-User OpenAI Visits a page when a user asks about it ❌ No
ClaudeBot Anthropic Collects pages for model training ✅ Yes
Claude-SearchBot Anthropic Indexes pages for Claude's search results ❌ No
Claude-User Anthropic Visits a page when a user asks about it ❌ No
PerplexityBot Perplexity Surfaces and links sites in Perplexity answers ❌ No
Perplexity-User Perplexity Visits a page when a user asks about it ❌ No
Google-Extended Google Controls use in Gemini training and in Gemini app answers. Google says it has no effect on Google Search ✅ Yes
DuckAssistBot DuckDuckGo Fetches pages for DuckDuckGo's AI answers (not training) ✅ Yes

OpenAI's documentation says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers. That bot isn't in Squarespace's checkbox, so ticking the box doesn't remove you from ChatGPT search, Claude's search or Perplexity.

It isn't only about training, though. The box also blocks two bots that feed AI answers: Google-Extended, which covers Gemini app answers, and DuckAssistBot, which powers DuckDuckGo's AI answers.

What to do: If showing up in AI answers matters to you, leave it unticked. That's also what Squarespace's own AI-search guide recommends. Tick it only if keeping your content out of AI training matters more to you than those two answer engines. Either way, it won't explain a missing ChatGPT or Perplexity mention.

"Block Search engine crawlers"

This is the one that matters. Ticking it adds Disallow: / to your robots.txt, which tells every bot to stay out. That includes Google, Bing, and every AI search crawler in the table above. (The on-demand fetchers, ChatGPT-User and Perplexity-User, may ignore robots.txt when a user pastes your link. But you won't be found in search or AI answers.)

The usual story is that someone ticked it while the site was being built and never unticked it. If this box is ticked on a live business site, untick it. That's your whole problem, and the rest of this test can wait.

Step 2: Read your robots.txt the right way (3 minutes)

Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt in your browser. Here's the top of a live Squarespace robots.txt we checked in September 2026, on a site that doesn't block AI (shortened):

User-agent: AI2Bot
User-agent: Amazonbot
User-agent: ClaudeBot
User-agent: GPTBot
... (about 25 more names)
User-agent: *
Disallow: /config
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /account$
Disallow: /api/
...

It looks alarming, but it isn't. robots.txt works in groups. A stack of User-agent lines shares whatever rules come right after the stack. Here, GPTBot and ClaudeBot are stacked directly on top of User-agent: * ("everyone"), so they follow exactly the same rules as every other crawler.

Those rules only keep bots out of system areas: the admin (/config), site search results, customer accounts, and some internal addresses. Your actual pages are open.

What "blocked" looks like: the bot's name followed by Disallow: /, a slash with nothing after it. That means "the whole site." If you don't see that, you're not blocking it.

Your file may list more names, fewer, or none at all, depending on your settings and when you check. The names don't matter. The rule underneath them does.

Why checkers get this wrong: Many tools just search the file for "GPTBot" and report "blocked" when they find it. AI assistants misread it too. In an August 2026 Squarespace Forum thread, a designer's AI assistant claimed her portfolio page was blocked by robots.txt, then loaded it fine on the second try. The file hadn't changed; the tool had misread it. Trust the file, not the verdict.

One edge case: If your domain runs through Cloudflare (some Squarespace sites do, often for redirects or an llms.txt workaround), check Cloudflare's AI crawler setting too. Blocking there happens before the bot ever reaches your robots.txt, so it won't show up in the file. Since July 2025, Cloudflare asks new domains whether to allow AI crawlers when they sign up, and blocks them unless the owner says yes.

Step 3: See your site the way an AI crawler does (4 minutes)

Here's something most people don't know: ChatGPT's, Claude's and Perplexity's crawlers don't run JavaScript. A large study by Vercel found that none of them execute it. They read the HTML your server sends, then stop. Google's Gemini is the exception, because it borrows Google's own crawler, which does run it.

So anything that appears on your page only after JavaScript runs is invisible to most AI engines. Here's how to check.

The quick way (no tools):

  1. Open your page and press Cmd+Option+U (Mac) or Ctrl+U (Windows) to view the page source.
  2. Press Cmd+F / Ctrl+F and search for a short run of plain words (four or five) from the middle of the page, like part of a line from your About section or a customer review. Avoid words next to apostrophes, quote marks or bold text, because the source stores those differently and a real match can look missing.
  3. If the words are there, AI crawlers can read them. If they aren't, try another phrase before concluding they can't.

The thorough way (see the whole page as a crawler does):

  1. Open your page in Chrome and press Cmd+Option+I / Ctrl+Shift+I to open DevTools.
  2. Press Cmd+Shift+P / Ctrl+Shift+P, type "Disable JavaScript", and press Enter.
  3. Reload the page. The layout may look broken; ignore that and read the words.
  4. JavaScript comes back on when you close DevTools.

What you'll usually find on Squarespace: good news. Squarespace puts your text in the page itself. When we checked three real Squarespace sites, every native text block was in the HTML before any script ran.

What goes missing is the extras: third-party widgets like review carousels, social feeds, some pop-ups and plugins that fill in their content with JavaScript after the page loads.

The fix: If a widget holds words you'd want an AI to repeat (your reviews, prices, FAQs, service areas), put a plain-text version in a normal Squarespace text block as well. For example, add your three best reviews as a text block, with the customers' names, below the carousel.

Step 4: Check your machine-readable business card (3 minutes)

Structured data (also called schema) is a hidden block of labeled facts about your business: its name, logo, address, phone number and social profiles. Search engines and AI tools use it to confirm who you are.

Squarespace creates some of this automatically, including Organization, LocalBusiness and WebSite markup. You can't edit what it generates, but you can check it.

How to check:

  1. Go to validator.schema.org and paste your homepage address.
  2. Look at the Organization or LocalBusiness entry. Is your business name there? Your address? Your phone number? Your logo?

What we often find: half-empty cards. On one live Squarespace site we checked in September 2026, the automatic LocalBusiness markup had "address": "" and "openingHours": "". That's a business card with blank lines on it.

The fix:

  1. Fill in Settings → Selling → Business Information (location, hours, phone, email), then check again.
  2. If Squarespace's version is still thin, add your own Organization or LocalBusiness block through Code Injection (available on Core plans and up). Use exactly the same business name, address and phone number you use on Google, Yelp and your social profiles, and link those profiles.

If you're online-only, don't invent an address to fill the gap. A local-business card with no real location is worse than none. Plain Organization markup (name, logo, website, social profiles) is the better fit.

A fair caveat: Google's own AI guide says structured data isn't required for its AI features, though it recommends keeping it. Think of it as an ID card, not a secret password. It won't get you quoted by itself, but it helps engines connect your website, your Google listing and your reviews to the same business.

Step 5: The test that matters most: are you quotable? (3 minutes)

Steps 1 to 4 check whether AI can read your site. This step checks whether it has any reason to quote you.

AI answers are built from short passages that directly answer the question someone typed. So look at your headings. Do they answer questions, or are they just labels?

Here's a real example. A contractor's services page we audited has 8 headings and not one question:

CONSTRUCTION SERVICES · CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT · CONCRETE FLATWORK · CONCRETE FOUNDATIONS · RESIDENTIAL FRAMING · WHOLE HOME REMODEL · …

Nobody types "CONCRETE FOUNDATIONS" into ChatGPT. They type "How much does a concrete foundation cost in San Jose?" or "How long does a home remodel take?" When a page answers that question in plain words, it has something an AI engine can quote.

Try this now:

  1. Write down five questions customers ask you before they buy. Your inbox is the best source.
  2. For each one, find the page on your site that answers it. Does the answer appear in the first two sentences under a heading?
  3. Any question without a clear answer is a gap. Those gaps are your content plan.

The rewrite pattern:

  • Heading: the question, in the customer's words ("How much does a concrete foundation cost in San Jose?")
  • First two sentences: the direct answer, with specifics like a typical range, timeline or service area
  • Everything after: the detail, the process, the photos

Squarespace's own guide to AI search gives the same advice in general terms: clear language, organized with headings and lists. For a fuller walkthrough of question-led pages, alongside the classic SEO basics that still matter, see our sister company's Complete Guide to Squarespace SEO and AI Search (AEO).

Optional: ask the AI engines directly (5 minutes)

Once the basics pass, ask the engines themselves. Try three prompts in ChatGPT and Perplexity:

  1. "What does [your business name] in [your city] do?" Is the description accurate?
  2. "Who are the best [your service] in [your city]?" Are you mentioned? If not, which sources are cited instead? Those directories, review sites and competitors are the places AI already trusts in your category. That's your off-site to-do list.
  3. "Summarize this page: [your URL]" This checks that the page can be fetched and read. It doesn't tell you whether you'll be recommended. It also doesn't prove crawlers are allowed in: the fetchers ChatGPT and Perplexity use for pasted links may ignore robots.txt.

Answers change from one run to the next, so try each prompt two or three times before drawing conclusions.

If you use Squarespace's AI Visibility panel (7.1 sites), three things are worth knowing:

  • "Mentioned" means your site's name appeared in the answer. It doesn't mean you were cited or linked.
  • Each run uses AI credits, and how many you get depends on your plan.
  • The combined score only reaches 100% when your alt text and meta descriptions are complete and every prompt comes back Mentioned. Part of that score is ordinary SEO housekeeping, which is a fair reminder that AI SEO builds on traditional SEO rather than replacing it.

Check your analytics too. Look at your traffic sources for visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com. Some AI visits arrive without that label and show up as "direct," so treat the number as a minimum.

What about llms.txt?

Squarespace added a built-in llms.txt option in July 2026. You'll find it under Website → SEO/AI Visibility → SEO Settings → LLMS.txt (also reachable from Settings → Marketing → SEO appearance). It's off by default and only works on 7.1 sites.

Here's where things stand. Squarespace calls llms.txt "a proposed standard that's still actively in development." Google's guide to its AI features says Google Search doesn't use files like it. Meanwhile, Chrome's Lighthouse tool has started checking for one in an experimental test for AI browsing agents.

Our take: it's a 10-minute nice-to-have. Don't expect it to change whether you get quoted. If you add one, keep it simple: who you are, what you offer, where you work, and links to your five most important pages.

Your 15-minute checklist

# Check Passes if… If it fails
1 Settings → Website → Crawlers "Block Search engine crawlers" is unticked Untick it. This one blocks everything
2 yoursite.com/robots.txt No Disallow: / under bots you care about See Step 1; check Cloudflare if you use it
3 View Source or JavaScript off Your key sentences are in the page Put widget content in native text blocks too
4 validator.schema.org Name and logo present; address and phone only if they're real Complete Business Information; add your own markup if needed
5 Your headings Your top customer questions are answered in plain words Rewrite headings as questions, with the answer right below

FAQ

Should I tick "Block known artificial intelligence crawlers"? If AI visibility matters to you, no, and Squarespace's own AI-search guide says the same. The box mostly covers training bots like GPTBot and ClaudeBot. It doesn't touch the search bots behind ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity answers (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot). It does block Google-Extended (Gemini app answers) and DuckAssistBot (DuckDuckGo's AI answers).

Does blocking GPTBot remove me from ChatGPT? No. GPTBot collects pages for training. ChatGPT search uses a different bot, OAI-SearchBot, which Squarespace's checkbox doesn't include.

Can I edit my robots.txt on Squarespace? Not directly. You control it with the two checkboxes in Settings → Website → Crawlers. To hide an individual page from search engines, use that page's SEO settings.

My SEO tool says AI crawlers are blocked. Who's right? Read the file yourself (Step 2). If the AI bots are stacked above User-agent: * with no Disallow: / of their own, they're allowed in.

I just unticked a box. How long until it takes effect? OpenAI says it can take about 24 hours for its search systems to pick up a robots.txt change. Other engines don't publish a timeline.

Want the full picture without the manual work?

Sitector audits your live Squarespace site for the things in this post: crawler access, your business markup, page titles and descriptions, and headings that don't answer anyone's question. You get a scored report where every finding comes with the exact fix, where to click in Squarespace, and what it's worth in points. It's free while we're in early access. Run your free audit →

Sitector is built by the team behind squarewebsites.org, makers of Squarespace plugins and the SquareWebsites Tools extension.

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