In the era of artificial intelligence, website owners face a growing challenge: AI bots scraping content without permission. These bots, often deployed by companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and others, crawl sites to gather data for training large language models or powering AI search features. While some bots respect rules like robots.txt, many ignore them or disguise themselves, leading to unauthorized use of your intellectual property. Fortunately, Cloudflare provides powerful, user-friendly tools to combat this issue. This guide will walk you through the steps to protect your site using Cloudflare’s features, from simple toggles to advanced custom rules.
AI scraping can lead to several problems:
Cloudflare, a leading content delivery network (CDN) and security provider, offers bot management solutions that detect and block these crawlers effectively. Their tools are available even on free plans, making it accessible for bloggers, small businesses, and large sites alike.
If you’re not already using Cloudflare, start here:
Once set up, you can access the dashboard at dash.cloudflare.com.
Cloudflare has simplified blocking AI scrapers with a dedicated toggle. This feature automatically identifies and blocks known AI bots based on their fingerprints, and it updates over time as new bots emerge.
This blocks bots like those from major AI companies that scrape for model training or inference. It’s available for all plan levels, including free. Cloudflare’s system complements robots.txt but enforces blocks more reliably since many bots ignore directives.
Note: This won’t affect legitimate search engines like Google or Bing, as Cloudflare distinguishes between them.
For more control, use Cloudflare’s Web Application Firewall (WAF) to create rules targeting specific AI bot user agents. User agents are strings bots send to identify themselves. While some bots spoof these, combining with Cloudflare’s bot detection strengthens your defense.
Here are some prevalent AI bot user agents as of 2025:
For a fuller list, check resources like Dark Visitors or update based on your server logs.
You can refine rules by combining conditions, such as blocking only if the bot score is low (under Security > Bots > Bot Score).
This method is ideal if the one-click toggle misses a specific bot or if you want to allow some while blocking others.
While Cloudflare handles enforcement, add these for good measure:
User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: / to your site’s robots.txt file. Many ethical bots honor this, but it’s not foolproof.<meta name="robots" content="noai, noimageai"> to your HTML headers to opt out of AI training (supported by some like Google).Monitor your site’s traffic in Cloudflare’s analytics to see blocked requests and adjust rules as needed.
Protecting your website from AI scraping is crucial in 2025’s digital landscape. Cloudflare makes it straightforward with its bot management features, empowering you to reclaim control over your content. Start with the one-click toggle for quick protection, then layer on custom rules for precision. By implementing these steps, you’ll reduce unauthorized scraping, save resources, and ensure your site serves real users first.
If you encounter issues, Cloudflare’s community forums and support are excellent resources. Have you blocked AI bots on your site? Share your experiences in the comments!