Safe Official docs AI & LLM Bots

Cloudflare AI Search (external sites)

Operated by Cloudflare

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
Cloudflare-AI-Search-External
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-External 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 (external sites)?

Cloudflare-AI-Search-External is the same Cloudflare AI Search crawler when a customer index follows links onto a domain outside that customer's Cloudflare account.

It identifies itself with the token Cloudflare-AI-Search-External. Cloudflare documents it at developers.cloudflare.com.

What happens if you block Cloudflare AI Search (external sites)?

Blocking it keeps your pages out of other Cloudflare customers' AI Search indexes. It has no effect on Google or Bing.
Allow it if you are happy to appear in other sites' AI Search indexes; block it if not.

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

How to block Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search-External</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-External Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search-External Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search-External Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) if ($http_user_agent ~* "Cloudflare-AI-Search-External") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Cloudflare-AI-Search-External" 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 (external sites) safe to allow?

Yes. Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) is a documented bot: Cloudflare publishes a page that names it and explains what it does.
Cloudflare lists AI Search as a verified bot in its Radar directory. A user agent alone can be copied, so check the request is from Cloudflare before trusting it.

What does Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) do?

From Cloudflare's own documentation.

  • Cloudflare-AI-Search-External is the same Cloudflare AI Search crawler when a customer index follows links onto a domain outside that customer's Cloudflare account.
  • Blocking it keeps your pages out of other Cloudflare customers' AI Search indexes. It has no effect on Google or Bing.

Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) in context

Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) 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 3, mid-priority crawlers with a clear purpose but a smaller audience. 15 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 (external sites) rests on what you want from Cloudflare, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.

How site owners treat Cloudflare AI Search (external sites)

Our robots.txt study of the Tranco top 10,000 did not track Cloudflare-AI-Search-External 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 (external sites)'s operator says it follows robots.txt, so a correctly written Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) group is enough to control it.

Cloudflare crawlers and close alternatives

Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) is one of 4 Cloudflare crawlers in our database. A User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search-External group controls Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) only; the other Cloudflare tokens below need their own lines.

  • Cloudflare-AI-Search-External: this crawler (Tier 3)
  • Cloudflare-AI-Search: Cloudflare AI Search, builds a search or answer index (Tier 2)
  • 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 (external sites) the same answer as its siblings, stack User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search-External with their lines above one set of rules; to treat Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) 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 (external sites) is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.

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

Which rule Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) actually follows

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

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search-External
Disallow: /drafts/
  1. Find the group. Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) looks for a group naming Cloudflare-AI-Search-External. 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 (external sites), 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 (external sites) if the file also has a User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search-External group?

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

Related: how AI engines choose their sources

Test yourself: will blocking Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) remove your pages from AI answers?

Often, yes. Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) 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-external the same as User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search-External?

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 (external sites)? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) by type of site
If you are...Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite itAllow it. Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) 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 (external sites) 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 (external sites) on your own site

  1. Open /robots.txt on your domain and search for Cloudflare-AI-Search-External. If it is not named, it follows User-agent: *.
  2. List the Disallow lines in the group Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) 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 (external sites) even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
  4. Run our crawler access checker to see how Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.

Common mistakes with Cloudflare AI Search (external sites)

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

  1. Blocking Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) 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 (external sites) 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-External group exists, Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) ignores every rule under User-agent: *.

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

Spotting Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) in your logs

robots.txt says what Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) 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-External" /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-External" /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 (external sites) user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:

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

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Cloudflare AI Search (external sites)?
The official user-agent string for Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) is: Cloudflare-AI-Search-External. 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 AI Search as a verified bot in its Radar directory. A user agent alone can be copied, so check the request is from Cloudflare before trusting it.
Is Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) safe?
Yes. Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) is a documented bot: Cloudflare publishes a page that names it and explains what it does.
Will blocking Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) hurt my SEO?
Blocking it keeps your pages out of other Cloudflare customers' AI Search indexes. It has no effect on Google or Bing.
How do I block Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:
User-agent: Cloudflare-AI-Search-External
Disallow: /

This instructs Cloudflare AI Search (external sites) 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 (external sites) 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 (external sites) is crawling my site?
Search your web server access logs for the string Cloudflare-AI-Search-External (case-insensitive: grep -i "Cloudflare-AI-Search-External" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

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