WRTN AI
Operated by WRTN
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
Reported, not operator documented
WRTN has not published a crawler page that names WRTNBot. It is listed here on our own evidence. Verified by AI Crawler Check: 63 of the 5,583 valid robots.txt files in the Tranco top 10,000 carry a rule for WRTNBot, so site owners treat it as a real crawler name (how we measure this). That proves the spelling is in use, not who sends it. Reported WRTN crawler. No vendor page.
What that means for you: the WRTNBot rule on this page is the best available spelling, but WRTN has made no statement of purpose, crawl rate or robots.txt compliance. Treat a WRTNBot request in your logs as a clue, not proof of who sent it, and add a firewall rule if that 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?
User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.Want to see whether WRTN AI actually visits you? Read how do I monitor AI bot traffic to my website?
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.
Is WRTN AI safe to allow?
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
WRTN AI in context
WRTN AI is a training crawler operated by WRTN. In plain terms, it collects pages both for training and for search or answers. 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 WRTN AI rests on what you want from WRTN, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.
How site owners treat WRTN AI
In our own scan of the Tranco top 10,000 (5,583 valid robots.txt files), 63 files (1.1%) name WRTNBot in a User-agent line. That shows site owners treat the token as a real crawler worth a rule. It does not, on its own, prove who operates it.
Does it follow robots.txt?
WRTN AI's operator does not clearly document how it treats robots.txt. Write the WRTN AI rule anyway, then confirm in your logs that its requests stop.
WRTN crawlers and close alternatives
WRTN runs only this one crawler in our database, so a single User-agent: WRTNBot group controls everything WRTN fetches through it.
Other AI and LLM crawlers that do the same job (collects pages both for training and for search or answers) include PerplexityBot from Perplexity AI, Andibot from Andi, cohere-ai from Cohere, DeepSeekBot from DeepSeek, DoubaoBot from ByteDance, GrokBot from xAI. Deciding about WRTN AI is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.
We first recorded WRTNBot on June 18, 2026. We could not find a page where WRTN names it, so treat the token as reported rather than documented.
Which rule WRTN AI actually follows
WRTN AI reads exactly one group in robots.txt, the most specific one that names WRTNBot, and never combines rules across groups. This short file shows the trap:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/
User-agent: WRTNBot
Disallow: /drafts/- Find the group. WRTN AI looks for a group naming
WRTNBot. One exists, so it ignoresUser-agent: *completely. - Apply only that group. It is refused
/drafts/and nothing else. - The surprise.
/private/is open to WRTN AI, because that rule lives in the*group it no longer reads. To keep it out of both, repeatDisallow: /private/inside its own group.
Test yourself: does a rule under User-agent: * apply to WRTN AI if the file also has a User-agent: WRTNBot group?
No. Once a group names it, WRTN AI reads only that group. Put every rule you want it to follow inside its own group.
Test yourself: will blocking WRTN AI remove your pages from AI answers?
No. WRTN AI collects training data. Blocking it changes what future models learn, not which pages AI answers cite today.
Test yourself: is User-agent: wrtnbot the same as User-agent: WRTNBot?
Yes. RFC 9309 makes user-agent matching case-insensitive. Paths are a different story: Disallow: /Blog/ does not block /blog/.
Should you allow WRTN AI? Decide by situation
| If you are... | Recommended setting |
|---|---|
| You publish content and want AI answers to cite it | Your call. WRTN AI is a training crawler, so blocking it does not remove you from AI answers; retrieval crawlers do that job. |
| You license content and want to stop AI training | Block it by name with User-agent: WRTNBot and Disallow: /. |
| You run an online shop | Allow it unless your logs show it is costly. |
| Your server is under load from bots | Rate-limit before blocking. It is rated safe in our database. |
Check WRTN AI on your own site
- Open
/robots.txton your domain and search forWRTNBot. If it is not named, it followsUser-agent: *. - List the
Disallowlines in the group WRTN AI follows and test your key URLs against them; the longest match wins, andAllowwins a tie. - Look beyond the file. A firewall or bot manager can refuse WRTN AI even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
- Run our AI bot checker to see how WRTN AI and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.
Common mistakes with WRTN AI
The errors we see most often with WRTN AI in the files and firewalls we test:
- Assuming that blocking WRTN AI removes you from AI answers. It is a training crawler; AI answers are fed by retrieval and user-triggered crawlers with different tokens.
- Blocking WRTN AI with a broad
User-agent: *rule that also catches search engines. NameWRTNBotin its own group instead. - Expecting a WRTN AI block to remove content already collected. robots.txt only affects future visits.
All three hide inside a file that looks correct, so check WRTN AI from outside after every change.
Spotting WRTN AI in your logs
robots.txt says what WRTN AI 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 "WRTNBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
| awk '{print $4}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -cAnd this shows which paths it requested most, which is the quickest way to see whether your Disallow lines are being respected:
grep -iE "WRTNBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
| awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20Check the requests are genuine
Anyone can send the WRTN AI user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:
WRTNBot: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where the operator documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable WRTN AI request with caution.
Frequently Asked Questions
What user-agent string does WRTN AI use?
WRTNBot. Evidence that the spelling is in real use comes from our own robots.txt study: 63 of the 5,583 valid robots.txt files in the Tranco top 10,000 name it (fetched October 20, 2026), 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?
Will blocking WRTN AI hurt my SEO?
User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.How do I block WRTN AI in robots.txt?
/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?
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?
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.