Safe Official docs AI & LLM Bots

Cloudflare AI Search

Operated by Cloudflare

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
Cloudflare-AI-Search
Category:
AI & LLM Bots
Operator:
Cloudflare
Safety:
Safe
Blocking Impact:
Low - No effect on Google or Bing rankings
SEO Impact Score:
1/10
Official docs:
developers.cloudflare.com

Confirmed by the operator

Cloudflare names Cloudflare-AI-Search on its own documentation page, linked above. The token, purpose and robots.txt behaviour on this profile come from that page, re-checked on October 19, 2026.

What is Cloudflare AI Search?

Cloudflare-AI-Search is the crawler behind Cloudflare AI Search. It crawls a site when a Cloudflare customer builds an AI search index of it, usually their own site.

Cloudflare renamed it from Cloudflare-AutoRAG on 2026-02-09 and still honours the old token. It identifies itself with the token Cloudflare-AI-Search. Cloudflare documents it at developers.cloudflare.com.

What happens if you block Cloudflare AI Search?

Blocking it stops Cloudflare AI Search indexes from including your pages. It has no effect on Google or Bing.
Allow it if you want your pages in Cloudflare AI Search indexes; block it if you do not.

Want to see whether Cloudflare AI Search actually visits you? Read how do I monitor AI bot traffic to my website?

How to block Cloudflare AI Search with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block Cloudflare AI Search if ($http_user_agent ~* "Cloudflare-AI-Search") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block Cloudflare AI Search SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Cloudflare-AI-Search" bad_bot Order Allow,Deny Allow from all Deny from env=bad_bot
Meta robots tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
X-Robots-Tag header
X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is Cloudflare AI Search safe to allow?

Yes. Cloudflare AI Search is a documented bot: Cloudflare publishes a page that names it and explains what it does.
Cloudflare lists the crawler as a verified bot in its Radar directory. On Cloudflare, match it by Bot Detection ID 122933950 (unchanged by the rename).

What does Cloudflare AI Search do?

From Cloudflare's own documentation.

  • Cloudflare-AI-Search is the crawler behind Cloudflare AI Search.
  • Blocking it stops Cloudflare AI Search indexes from including your pages. It has no effect on Google or Bing.

Cloudflare AI Search in context

Cloudflare AI Search is a retrieval crawler that feeds AI search answers operated by Cloudflare. In plain terms, it builds a search or answer index. Our database files it under AI and LLM crawlers and ranks it Tier 2, important crawlers from established AI and search operators. 74 of the 104 AI and LLM crawlers in our database share this tier.

Its safety rating is safe and its blocking impact is low. So the decision about Cloudflare AI Search rests on what you want from Cloudflare, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.

How site owners treat Cloudflare AI Search

Our robots.txt study of the Tranco top 10,000 did not track Cloudflare-AI-Search as a named token, so we do not publish an adoption figure for it. If you run a large site, your own logs are the best evidence of how often it visits.

Does it follow robots.txt?

Cloudflare AI Search's operator says it follows robots.txt, so a correctly written Cloudflare AI Search group is enough to control it.

Cloudflare crawlers and close alternatives

Cloudflare AI Search is one of 4 Cloudflare crawlers in our database. A User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search group controls Cloudflare AI Search only; the other Cloudflare tokens below need their own lines. The one exception is Cloudflare-AutoRAG: it is the same crawler under its old name, and Cloudflare applies a rule for either.

  • Cloudflare-AI-Search: this crawler (Tier 2)
  • Cloudflare-AI-Search-External: Cloudflare AI Search (external sites), builds a search or answer index (Tier 3)
  • Cloudflare-AutoRAG: Cloudflare AutoRAG, builds a search or answer index (Tier 2)
  • CloudflareBrowserRenderingCrawler: Cloudflare Crawler (Browser Run), harvests pages for a dataset or data product (Tier 3)

To give Cloudflare AI Search the same answer as its siblings, stack User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search with their lines above one set of rules; to treat Cloudflare AI Search differently, give it its own group.

Other AI and LLM crawlers that do the same job (builds a search or answer index) include AddSearchBot from AddSearch, AIWebIndex from Lyrenth, atlassian-bot from Atlassian, AzureAI-SearchBot from Microsoft, ExaBot from Exa, ExaSearchBot from Exa. Deciding about Cloudflare AI Search is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.

We first recorded Cloudflare-AI-Search on October 19, 2026. Cloudflare documents it on developers.cloudflare.com, and we recheck that page before each release.

Which rule Cloudflare AI Search actually follows

Cloudflare AI Search reads exactly one group in robots.txt, the most specific one that names Cloudflare-AI-Search, and never combines rules across groups. This short file shows the trap:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search
Disallow: /drafts/
  1. Find the group. Cloudflare AI Search looks for a group naming Cloudflare-AI-Search. One exists, so it ignores User-agent: * completely.
  2. Apply only that group. It is refused /drafts/ and nothing else.
  3. The surprise. /private/ is open to Cloudflare AI Search, because that rule lives in the * group it no longer reads. To keep it out of both, repeat Disallow: /private/ inside its own group.
Test yourself: does a rule under User-agent: * apply to Cloudflare AI Search if the file also has a User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search group?

No. Once a group names it, Cloudflare AI Search reads only that group. Put every rule you want it to follow inside its own group.

Test yourself: will blocking Cloudflare AI Search remove your pages from AI answers?

Often, yes. Cloudflare AI Search is a retrieval crawler that feeds AI search answers, so pages it cannot fetch can drop out of the answers or results it supports.

Test yourself: is User-agent: cloudflare-ai-search the same as User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search?

Yes. RFC 9309 makes user-agent matching case-insensitive. Paths are a different story: Disallow: /Blog/ does not block /blog/.

Should you allow Cloudflare AI Search? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for Cloudflare AI Search by type of site
If you are...Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite itAllow it. Cloudflare AI Search fetches pages for answers, so blocking it can remove you from them.
You license content and want to stop AI trainingBlocking it does not stop training, because Cloudflare AI Search is a retrieval crawler that feeds AI search answers. Block the operator's training crawler instead.
You run an online shopAllow it on product and category pages, which are the pages shoppers ask assistants about.
Your server is under load from botsRate-limit before blocking. It is rated safe in our database.

Check Cloudflare AI Search on your own site

  1. Open /robots.txt on your domain and search for Cloudflare-AI-Search. If it is not named, it follows User-agent: *.
  2. List the Disallow lines in the group Cloudflare AI Search follows and test your key URLs against them; the longest match wins, and Allow wins a tie.
  3. Look beyond the file. A firewall or bot manager can refuse Cloudflare AI Search even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
  4. Run our crawlability checker for AI search to see how Cloudflare AI Search and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.

Common mistakes with Cloudflare AI Search

The errors we see most often with Cloudflare AI Search in the files and firewalls we test:

  1. Blocking Cloudflare AI Search while trying to stop AI training. Retrieval crawlers fetch pages so answers can cite them; blocking it can remove you from those answers without affecting training.
  2. Letting a firewall or bot-fight mode refuse Cloudflare AI Search while robots.txt allows it. The file looks right, but the crawler still gets a 403 or a challenge page.
  3. Forgetting that once a User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search group exists, Cloudflare AI Search ignores every rule under User-agent: *.

All three hide inside a file that looks correct, so check Cloudflare AI Search from outside after every change.

Spotting Cloudflare AI Search in your logs

robots.txt says what Cloudflare AI Search may do; your access logs show what it actually did.

Count requests

On a server with standard Nginx or Apache logs, this counts matching requests per day (adjust the log path for your host):

grep -iE "Cloudflare-AI-Search" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -c

And this shows which paths it requested most, which is the quickest way to see whether your Disallow lines are being respected:

grep -iE "Cloudflare-AI-Search" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

Check the requests are genuine

Anyone can send the Cloudflare AI Search user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:

  • Cloudflare-AI-Search: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where the operator documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable Cloudflare AI Search request with caution.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Cloudflare AI Search?
The official user-agent string for Cloudflare AI Search is: Cloudflare-AI-Search. Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Cloudflare lists the crawler as a verified bot in its Radar directory. On Cloudflare, match it by Bot Detection ID 122933950 (unchanged by the rename).
Is Cloudflare AI Search safe?
Yes. Cloudflare AI Search is a documented bot: Cloudflare publishes a page that names it and explains what it does.
Will blocking Cloudflare AI Search hurt my SEO?
Blocking it stops Cloudflare AI Search indexes from including your pages. It has no effect on Google or Bing.
How do I block Cloudflare AI Search in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:
User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search
Disallow: /

This instructs Cloudflare AI Search not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).
Does Cloudflare AI Search respect robots.txt?
Yes. Cloudflare says pages robots.txt disallows are skipped and recorded as blocked_by_robots_txt.
How do I verify if Cloudflare AI Search is crawling my site?
Search your web server access logs for the string Cloudflare-AI-Search (case-insensitive: grep -i "Cloudflare-AI-Search" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

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