WRTN AI: User Agent, robots.txt Rules & Safety Rating

Q: What user-agent string does WRTN AI use?

WRTN AI is reported to identify itself with WRTNBot. That spelling comes from ai.robots.txt, not from WRTN, which has not published crawler documentation naming it. Use it in robots.txt as the best available match, and treat a request carrying it as a clue rather than proof of who sent it.

Q: Is WRTN AI safe?

WRTN AI is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: WRTN has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.

Q: Will blocking WRTN AI hurt my SEO?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking WRTN AI does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. WRTN AI is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

Q: How do I block WRTN AI in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: User-agent: WRTNBot Disallow: / This instructs WRTN AI not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).

Q: How do I verify if WRTN AI is crawling my site?

Search your access logs for WRTNBot (for example grep -i "WRTNBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Because the operator publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern, a match shows that something used the name, not that WRTN sent it.

Quick Facts

User-Agent:: WRTNBot
Category:: AI & LLM Bots
Operator:: WRTN
Safety:: Safe
Blocking Impact:: Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:: 2/10
Official docs:: None published by WRTN
Named by:: ai.robots.txt

Reported, not operator documented

WRTN has not published a crawler page that names WRTNBot. It is listed here because a credible public source does: ai.robots.txt. Reported WRTN crawler. No vendor page.

What that means for you: the robots.txt rule on this page is the best available spelling, and a well-behaved crawler using this string will honour it, but there is no vendor statement of purpose, crawl rate or robots.txt compliance to rely on. Treat a matching request in your logs as a detection clue, not proof of who sent it, and combine the rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you. If the operator publishes documentation, this profile moves to Official docs.

What is WRTN AI?

WRTN AI is a dual-purpose AI crawler operated by WRTN. It both indexes content for AI search answers and may retrieve pages on demand for user queries. Allowing it can improve your visibility inside WRTN's AI answers.

WRTN AI is a dual-purpose AI crawler operated by WRTN. It both indexes content for AI search answers and may retrieve pages on demand for user queries. Allowing it can improve your visibility inside WRTN's AI answers.
WRTN AI uses the user-agent token WRTNBot. You can control it via robots.txt, meta tags (noai), or the emerging llms.txt standard. Robots.txt is voluntary; for hard enforcement, combine it with server-level IP blocking.

What happens if you block WRTN AI?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking WRTN AI does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. WRTN AI is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

How to block WRTN AI with robots.txt

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

Block completely (robots.txt)

User-agent: WRTNBot
Disallow: /

Allow all (robots.txt)

User-agent: WRTNBot
Allow: /

Block private only (robots.txt)

User-agent: WRTNBot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /

Nginx server block

# Nginx: Hard-block WRTN AI
if ($http_user_agent ~* "WRTNBot") {
    return 403 "Bot blocked";
}

Apache .htaccess

# Apache: Hard-block WRTN AI
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "WRTNBot" bad_bot
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot

Meta robots tag

X-Robots-Tag header

X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is WRTN AI safe to allow?

WRTN AI is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: WRTN has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.

WRTN publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern for WRTN AI, so the user-agent string cannot be verified. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.

What does WRTN AI do?

Understanding WRTN AI's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

Indexes content for AI search answers
Retrieves pages on demand for user queries
Can surface your content as AI citations
Allowing it improves AI-answer visibility
robots.txt behaviour not documented by the operator

Frequently Asked Questions

What user-agent string does WRTN AI use?

WRTN AI is reported to identify itself with WRTNBot. That spelling comes from ai.robots.txt, not from WRTN, which has not published crawler documentation naming it. Use it in robots.txt as the best available match, and treat a request carrying it as a clue rather than proof of who sent it.

Is WRTN AI safe?

WRTN AI is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: WRTN has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.

Will blocking WRTN AI hurt my SEO?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking WRTN AI does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. WRTN AI is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

How do I block WRTN AI in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:

User-agent: WRTNBot
Disallow: /

This instructs WRTN AI not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).

Does WRTN AI respect robots.txt?

Not documented. WRTN has published no statement that WRTN AI reads robots.txt. A rule for WRTNBot will stop a client that chooses to honour it; for enforcement, add a firewall or CDN rule as well.

How do I verify if WRTN AI is crawling my site?

Search your access logs for WRTNBot (for example grep -i "WRTNBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Because the operator publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern, a match shows that something used the name, not that WRTN sent it.