Someone is running mass vulnerability scans, spoofing AI bots like ClaudeBot

Cloudflare reported that 2% of bot traffic across 5,000+ websites using Agent Analytics and AI Chat Referral Tracking is AI-related, up 11% from the previous 90 days, while overall bot visits fell 2%. The company identified a surge in mass vulnerability scans spoofing AI bots like ClaudeBot, with ClaudeBot accounting for 3.2% of agent activity.

Key ecosystem metrics across 5,000+ websites using Agent Analytics /products/agent-analytics and AI Chat Referral Tracking /products/ai-chat-referral-tracking . ↓ 2% Compared to the previous 90 days The amount of visits from bots vs. humans ↑ 11% Compared to the previous 90 days The percentage of bot traffic that's AI-related ↓ 9% Compared to the previous 90 days AI Agent AI Agent Uses an actual web browser to autonomously complete complex tasks on behalf of a human user AI Assistant AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer AI Coding Agent AI Coding Agent Fetches documentation and other resources to help build software AI Data Provider AI Data Provider Crawls websites to supply structured content to AI systems as a third-party service AI Data Scraper AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs AI Search Crawler AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results Archiver Archiver Captures and stores historical website snapshots for long-term digital preservation Automated Agent Automated Agent Automates browser interactions programmatically without direct human supervision Developer Helper Developer Helper Assists with testing, debugging, and ensuring website functionality Fetcher Fetcher Retrieves web page metadata to power app features like link previews or feeds Intelligence Gatherer Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting Scraper Scraper Extracts large amounts of web data, often without explicit website permission Search Engine Crawler Search Engine Crawler Systematically scans and indexes web pages to include in search results Security Scanner Security Scanner Scans websites for security vulnerabilities, threats, and configuration weaknesses SEO Crawler SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities Uncategorized Uncategorized Not yet assigned a type Undocumented AI Agent Undocumented AI Agent Crawls websites without disclosing its purpose, collecting data for an unknown AI use case Hover over each agent type for more information about what they do Agent types with the most activity bingbot /agents/bingbot SRCH Search Engine Crawler Systematically scans and indexes web pages to include in search results 8.2% Googlebot /agents/googlebot SRCH Search Engine Crawler Systematically scans and indexes web pages to include in search results 7.9% AhrefsBot /agents/ahrefsbot SEO SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities 6.2% Known Agent /agents/known-agent DEV Developer Helper Assists with testing, debugging, and ensuring website functionality 5.5% ChatGPT-User /agents/chatgpt-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 3.3% ClaudeBot /agents/claudebot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 3.2% PetalBot /agents/petalbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 3.2% SemrushBot /agents/semrushbot SEO SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities 3.0% facebookexternalhit /agents/facebookexternalhit FTCH Fetcher Retrieves web page metadata to power app features like link previews or feeds 2.6% meta-externalagent /agents/meta-externalagent SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 2.3% Amazonbot /agents/amazonbot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 2.3% MJ12bot /agents/mj12bot SEO SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities 2.2% Amzn-SearchBot /agents/amzn-searchbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 2.2% DotBot /agents/dotbot SEO SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities 2.1% Applebot /agents/applebot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 2.1% Agents with the most activity Operators with the most activity These bots scrape website content to train AI models. Some belong to AI companies, while others belong to third-party services that resell the data. Automatic Robots.txt /products/automatic-robots-txt can block unwanted scraping. Included agent types include AI Data Providers /agents?agent type url slug=ai-data-provider and AI Data Scrapers /agents?agent type url slug=ai-data-scraper . AI Data Provider AI Data Provider Crawls websites to supply structured content to AI systems as a third-party service AI Data Scraper AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs AI scraping activity by agent type over time Computers and Electronics 5.3% Business and Industrial 5.0% Internet and Telecom 4.5% Website categories with most activity ClaudeBot /agents/claudebot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 27.0% meta-externalagent /agents/meta-externalagent SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 19.5% Amazonbot /agents/amazonbot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 19.2% GPTBot /agents/gptbot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 9.4% Bytespider /agents/bytespider SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 7.3% ShapBot /agents/shapbot PVDR AI Data Provider Crawls websites to supply structured content to AI systems as a third-party service 5.6% GoogleOther /agents/googleother SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 3.9% CCBot /agents/ccbot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 2.3% Timpibot /agents/timpibot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 1.8% YouBot /agents/youbot PVDR AI Data Provider Crawls websites to supply structured content to AI systems as a third-party service 1.4% VelenPublicWebCrawler /agents/velenpublicwebcrawler SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 0.8% Diffbot /agents/diffbot PVDR AI Data Provider Crawls websites to supply structured content to AI systems as a third-party service 0.5% DeepSeekBot /agents/deepseekbot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 0.4% TerraCotta /agents/terracotta PVDR AI Data Provider Crawls websites to supply structured content to AI systems as a third-party service 0.3% AIWebIndex /agents/aiwebindex PVDR AI Data Provider Crawls websites to supply structured content to AI systems as a third-party service 0.2% Agents doing the most AI scraping Operators doing the most AI scraping These bots fetch website content in real time to power AI assistants, coding agents, and other retrieval-augmented generation RAG tasks. Pages inform responses on the spot, such as when an assistant summarizes an article or a coding agent references documentation. Included agent types include AI Assistants /agents?agent type url slug=ai-assistant and AI Coding Agents /agents?agent type url slug=ai-coding-agent . AI Assistant AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer AI Coding Agent AI Coding Agent Fetches documentation and other resources to help build software AI fetching activity by agent type over time Computers and Electronics 2.3% Travel and Transportation 1.9% Business and Industrial 1.8% Internet and Telecom 1.7% Website categories with most activity ChatGPT-User /agents/chatgpt-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 86.4% DuckAssistBot /agents/duckassistbot ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 3.3% Perplexity-User /agents/perplexity-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 2.7% Claude-User /agents/claude-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 2.5% MistralAI-User /agents/mistralai-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 2.1% Claude-Code /agents/claude-code CODE AI Coding Agent Fetches documentation and other resources to help build software 1.1% Shap-User /agents/shap-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 1.0% Google-NotebookLM /agents/google-notebooklm ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 0.4% Cursor /agents/cursor CODE AI Coding Agent Fetches documentation and other resources to help build software 0.4% Gemini-Deep-Research /agents/gemini-deep-research ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 0.0% meta-externalfetcher /agents/meta-externalfetcher ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 0.0% GoogleAgent-URLContext /agents/googleagent-urlcontext ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 0.0% Code /agents/code CODE AI Coding Agent Fetches documentation and other resources to help build software 0.0% kagi-fetcher /agents/kagi-fetcher ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 0.0% QualifiedBot /agents/qualifiedbot ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 0.0% Agents doing the most AI fetching Operators doing the most AI fetching These bots crawl website content so it can be surfaced in AI search engines and AI-generated answers. Those answers often include citations or links back to the source pages. Included agent types include AI Search Crawlers /agents?agent type url slug=ai-search-crawler . AI Search Crawler AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results AI search indexing activity by agent type over time Travel and Transportation 6.8% Books and Literature 4.9% Computers and Electronics 4.6% Arts and Entertainment 4.5% Website categories with most activity PetalBot /agents/petalbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 25.4% Amzn-SearchBot /agents/amzn-searchbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 17.3% Applebot /agents/applebot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 16.7% OAI-SearchBot /agents/oai-searchbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 11.9% meta-webindexer /agents/meta-webindexer SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 10.8% Claude-SearchBot /agents/claude-searchbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 10.4% PerplexityBot /agents/perplexitybot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 3.4% LinkupBot /agents/linkupbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 3.4% Google-CloudVertexBot /agents/google-cloudvertexbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 0.3% xAI-SearchBot /agents/xai-searchbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 0.2% AzureAI-SearchBot /agents/azureai-searchbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 0.2% AddSearchBot /agents/addsearchbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 0.0% Anomura /agents/anomura SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 0.0% MistralAI-Index /agents/mistralai-index SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 0.0% amazon-kendra /agents/amazon-kendra SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 0.0% Agents doing the most AI search indexing Operators doing the most AI search indexing These bots use browsers to autonomously navigate websites, click through pages, and make decisions to complete tasks for people. Agentic UX best practices https://web.dev/articles/ai-agent-site-ux and Google PageSpeed Insights https://pagespeed.web.dev/ help evaluate how well websites support them. Included agent types include AI Agents /agents?agent type url slug=ai-agent . ↓ 5% Compared to the previous 90 days The average duration of a session ↓ 1% Compared to the previous 90 days The average number of pages visited per session AI Agent AI Agent Uses an actual web browser to autonomously complete complex tasks on behalf of a human user AI browsing activity by agent type over time Computers and Electronics 0.0% Internet and Telecom 0.0% Travel and Transportation 0.0% Business and Industrial 0.0% Books and Literature 0.0% Arts and Entertainment 0.0% Website categories with most activity Google-Agent /agents/google-agent AGNT AI Agent Uses an actual web browser to autonomously complete complex tasks on behalf of a human user 43.0% Manus-User /agents/manus-user AGNT AI Agent Uses an actual web browser to autonomously complete complex tasks on behalf of a human user 40.1% ChatGPT Agent /agents/chatgpt-agent AGNT AI Agent Uses an actual web browser to autonomously complete complex tasks on behalf of a human user 16.9% NovaAct /agents/novaact AGNT AI Agent Uses an actual web browser to autonomously complete complex tasks on behalf of a human user 0.0% GoogleAgent-Mariner /agents/googleagent-mariner AGNT AI Agent Uses an actual web browser to autonomously complete complex tasks on behalf of a human user 0.0% AmazonBuyForMe /agents/amazonbuyforme AGNT AI Agent Uses an actual web browser to autonomously complete complex tasks on behalf of a human user 0.0% TwinAgent /agents/twinagent AGNT AI Agent Uses an actual web browser to autonomously complete complex tasks on behalf of a human user 0.0% Agents doing the most AI browsing Operators doing the most AI browsing See which robots.txt rules are set across the web and how well agents follow them. An agent's Robots.txt Effectiveness measuring-robots-txt-effectiveness measures the effectiveness of a disallow rule for it by estimating how much the agent reduces its traffic after it's blocked. How often all agents /agents across all agent types follow robots.txt rules LinkupBot /agents/linkupbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 100.0% serpstatbot /agents/serpstatbot SEO SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities 100.0% proximic /agents/proximic INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 100.0% ClarityBot /agents/claritybot SEO SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities 100.0% IAS crawler /agents/ias-crawler INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 100.0% Barkrowler /agents/barkrowler SEO SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities 100.0% um-IC /agents/um-ic INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 100.0% SEOkicks /agents/seokicks SEO SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities 100.0% Dragonfly /agents/dragonfly INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 100.0% AffsignalCrawler /agents/affsignalcrawler INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 100.0% AdsBot-Google-Mobile /agents/adsbot-google-mobile INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 100.0% meta-externalads /agents/meta-externalads INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 100.0% UptimeRobot /agents/uptimerobot DEV Developer Helper Assists with testing, debugging, and ensuring website functionality 100.0% Leikibot /agents/leikibot INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 100.0% TTD-Content /agents/ttd-content INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 100.0% Agents with the best Robots.txt Effectiveness measuring-robots-txt-effectiveness percentages Baiduspider /agents/baiduspider SRCH Search Engine Crawler Systematically scans and indexes web pages to include in search results 82.6% SirdataBot /agents/sirdatabot UNC Uncategorized Not yet assigned a type 84.5% ShapBot /agents/shapbot PVDR AI Data Provider Crawls websites to supply structured content to AI systems as a third-party service 90.4% YandexBot /agents/yandexbot SRCH Search Engine Crawler Systematically scans and indexes web pages to include in search results 91.2% Sogou web spider /agents/sogou-web-spider SRCH Search Engine Crawler Systematically scans and indexes web pages to include in search results 92.7% Mediapartners-Google /agents/mediapartners-google INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 93.2% Scrapy /agents/scrapy SCRP Scraper Extracts large amounts of web data, often without explicit website permission 93.8% Amazonbot /agents/amazonbot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 94.7% HeadlessChrome /agents/headlesschrome AUTO Automated Agent Automates browser interactions programmatically without direct human supervision 95.4% linkfluence /agents/linkfluence INT Intelligence Gatherer Analyzes web content for brand safety, competitive insights, and ad targeting 95.9% DotBot /agents/dotbot SEO SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities 96.1% OAI-SearchBot /agents/oai-searchbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 96.3% ChatGPT-User /agents/chatgpt-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 96.8% archive.org bot /agents/archive-org-bot ARCH Archiver Captures and stores historical website snapshots for long-term digital preservation 96.9% Agents with the worst Robots.txt Effectiveness measuring-robots-txt-effectiveness percentages ● GPTBot /agents/gptbot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 24.6% ● CCBot /agents/ccbot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 22.6% ● ClaudeBot /agents/claudebot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 21.7% ● Bytespider /agents/bytespider SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 18.9% ● PerplexityBot /agents/perplexitybot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 17.9% ● ChatGPT-User /agents/chatgpt-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 16.1% ● anthropic-ai /agents/anthropic-ai UND Undocumented AI Agent Crawls websites without disclosing its purpose, collecting data for an unknown AI use case 15.8% ● meta-externalagent /agents/meta-externalagent SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 15.6% ● Amazonbot /agents/amazonbot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 15.6% ● Diffbot /agents/diffbot PVDR AI Data Provider Crawls websites to supply structured content to AI systems as a third-party service 14.0% ● Claude-Web /agents/claude-web UND Undocumented AI Agent Crawls websites without disclosing its purpose, collecting data for an unknown AI use case 14.0% ● cohere-ai /agents/cohere-ai UND Undocumented AI Agent Crawls websites without disclosing its purpose, collecting data for an unknown AI use case 14.0% ● omgili /agents/omgili SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 13.5% Agents blocked by the most top websites See which agents are most frequently impersonated, and how spoofing activity changes over time. A visit is considered spoofed when it claims a recognized agent identity but fails that agent's supported authentication method, such as verified IP or Web Bot Auth. Active Threat: AI Bot Spoofing Campaign We are observing a widespread campaign impersonating AI bots to scan websites for vulnerabilities. The attacker appears to be targeting credential and configuration paths used by AI coding tools. Contact us for more information. The percentage of impersonated website traffic for each agent identity over time ● Googlebot /agents/googlebot SRCH Search Engine Crawler Systematically scans and indexes web pages to include in search results 0.5% ● ChatGPT-User /agents/chatgpt-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 0.1% ● GPTBot /agents/gptbot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 0.1% ● OAI-SearchBot /agents/oai-searchbot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 0.1% ● PerplexityBot /agents/perplexitybot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 0.1% ● ClaudeBot /agents/claudebot SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 0.0% ● Applebot /agents/applebot SRCH AI Search Crawler Indexes website content to possibly include as citations in AI-powered search results 0.0% ● bingbot /agents/bingbot SRCH Search Engine Crawler Systematically scans and indexes web pages to include in search results 0.0% ● Perplexity-User /agents/perplexity-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 0.0% ● MistralAI-User /agents/mistralai-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 0.0% ● GoogleOther /agents/googleother SCRP AI Data Scraper Downloads website content to include in datasets used for training AI models such as LLMs 0.0% ● AhrefsBot /agents/ahrefsbot SEO SEO Crawler Analyzes website structure and content to identify SEO improvement opportunities 0.0% ● Claude-User /agents/claude-user ASST AI Assistant Fetches website content in response to a user prompt, to include in an AI-generated answer 0.0% The most impersonated agent identities /.config/anthropic/credentials/default.json /.claude/settings.json /.claude.json /.hermes/.env /.openclaw/.env /.codex/config.toml /.continue/config.json /.aider.conf.yml /service-account.json /firebase-adminsdk.json /firebase-config.json /.aws/credentials /.aws/config /proc/self/environ /.git-credentials /.npmrc /.env.local /.env.production /.env.backup /backend/.env /api/.env /admin/.env /config/.env /laravel/.env /credentials.json /secrets.json /secrets.yml /key.json /rclone.conf A selection of top recently targeted paths See which AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini cite websites and send them human referral traffic. Citations are estimated. Google's guide https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide explains how websites can optimize their content to be more visible in AI chat responses GEO . Computers and Electronics 2.3% Travel and Transportation 1.9% Business and Industrial 1.8% Internet and Telecom 1.6% Website categories most frequently cited in AI chat responses Travel and Transportation 0.3% Computers and Electronics 0.1% Business and Industrial 0.1% Internet and Telecom 0.0% Website categories receiving the most referrals from AI chat The Index is updated daily with completed days of traffic, security, and referral data from more than 5,000 websites using Agent Analytics /products/agent-analytics and AI Chat Referral Tracking /products/ai-chat-referral-tracking . The current partial day is excluded. Percentage-change tags compare the current period with the preceding period of the same duration. Agent names, operators, and classifications come from the Agent Directory /agents , which is updated as new agents are discovered or existing agents change. Website categories follow the taxonomy used by Google AdSense https://adsense.google.com/start . Participating websites are not a random sample of the entire web, and the qualifying set can change as websites connect, disconnect, or cross activity thresholds. Results characterize the observed network and broader directional trends; they should not be interpreted as a precise census of global web traffic. Only websites meeting minimum activity and data-quality requirements are included. Internal, test, incomplete, or anomalous data is excluded. Bot traffic percentages use total server traffic as their denominator. AI chat referral percentages use estimated human traffic, calculated by excluding identified bot visits from total server traffic. Rates are calculated for each qualifying website first, then averaged across websites and completed days. This gives each website equal weight regardless of traffic volume and prevents a small number of high-traffic websites from dominating the results. Daily charts are not smoothed, allowing normal seasonality to remain visible. An agent's Robots.txt Effectiveness estimates the reduction in its request rate associated with a full disallow rule. For each completed day, Known Agents establishes an agent-specific baseline from qualifying websites where that agent is allowed, adjusts the baseline for the overall traffic of each website where the agent is disallowed, and compares the expected activity with the activity actually observed. Only website-day observations with sufficient site traffic, agent activity, cross-site coverage, and expected volume qualify. Scores also require repeated observations across multiple websites and days. When an agent publishes a supported authentication method, only verified traffic is attributed to it. Each qualifying website-day contributes equally. Scores range from 0%, meaning no measurable reduction, to 100%, meaning no qualifying requests were observed where the agent was disallowed. The headline Robots.txt Effectiveness metric gives each qualifying agent equal weight. Because this is an observational estimate rather than a controlled experiment, it measures an association with robots.txt rules but does not claim that robots.txt caused every observed difference. Top Blocked Bots is calculated separately using daily robots.txt scans of Similarweb's top 1,000 websites https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites . Spoofing statistics measure traffic from visits that claim the identity of a known agent but fail a supported authentication method, such as published IP verification or HTTP message signatures. Each agent's daily rate is calculated against total server traffic for every qualifying website, then averaged across websites. A failed check indicates that the visit was likely impersonating the named agent; it does not identify the software or operator that actually made the request. Agents without a supported authentication method are not included in these measurements. AI chat referral statistics count directly observed human visits carrying a recognized AI platform in the referring URL or campaign source. Visits without usable referral information cannot be attributed to an AI platform. Citation statistics are estimates based on requests from agents known to retrieve content for AI platforms. Those requests indicate that content may have informed a response, but they do not confirm that a source appeared as a citation to a user. Because AI platforms do not provide a complete public record of their sources, citation results should be interpreted as directional patterns rather than exact citation counts. Can journalists and media organizations use this data? Absolutely. You may cite The Agentic Web Index with attribution and a link to this page. For interviews, fact-checking, background context, or a more specific breakdown for a story, contact us and include your deadline. Do you work with researchers? Absolutely. We welcome thoughtful research into how agents and bots are changing the web. Tell us about your research question , timeframe, and intended use. Depending on the scope and data constraints, we may be able to provide additional context, compare approaches, or explore a joint analysis. Can I request a specific analysis? Yes. If you need a breakdown by agent, operator, activity type, website category, or time period that is not shown here, contact us . When the underlying data supports it, we can examine the question and provide a focused analysis. How do I see these trends on my own website?