TL;DR
Add explicit robots.txt rules for fast-growing AI crawlers like AI2Bot, CCBot, Bytespider, and cohere-ai to secure citations in niche research engines and Gen-AI shopping tools. Most ignore crawl-delay, so throttle bursts with HTTP 429 or CDN caps. Use the universal snippet below, enrich pages with Product/FAQ schema, and monitor logs for new AI referrals.
Related guides: GPTBot • ClaudeBot • PerplexityBot • Google-Extended
Why Emerging Crawlers Matter to Revenue
Small-team LLMs now power 19% of all AI-chat queries, up from 8% in 2024. Academic engines and lightweight shopping assistants lean on open datasets scraped by AI2Bot, CCBot, Bytespider, and Cohere. Ignoring them surrenders mind-share in research citations, journal backlinks, and long-tail product look-ups.
2025 Growth Stats & Market Share
| Metric | 2024 → 2025 | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Daily AI2Bot requests (top 5K sites) | +410% | Research citations snowball |
| Cohere-AI crawl bandwidth share | 0.9% → 3.7% | Growing Gen-AI supplier |
| Sites explicitly allowing CCBot | 28% of top-10K | First-movers dominate Common Crawl snapshots |
Meet the New Wave of Bots
| Purpose | User-agent | Behaviour | Robots.txt Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cohere embeddings & chat | cohere-ai | Burst jobs every 5–7 days | Allow / Disallow |
| Academic index | AI2Bot | Wide crawl, honours 503 retry | Allow / Disallow, partial crawl-delay |
| Common Crawl snapshot | CCBot | Monthly deep scrape | Allow / Disallow |
| ByteDance search | Bytespider | Steady, high-volume | Allow / Disallow |
Cohere-AI / CohereBot
Cohere's crawler powers embeddings and chat with burst jobs every 5–7 days. It respects Allow/Disallow but ignores crawl-delay. Use 429 + Retry-After for throttling.
AI2Bot & Semantic Scholar Spiders
AI2Bot indexes the open web for the Allen Institute's Semantic Scholar and allied research models. It honours 503 retry signals and partially respects crawl-delay—a rarity among emerging bots.
CCBot, Common Crawl & Bytespider
CCBot performs monthly deep scrapes for Common Crawl snapshots that feed dozens of downstream AI models. Bytespider is ByteDance's steady, high-volume crawler for search and AI training. Neither respects crawl-delay.
How to Spot Them in Logs
grep -E "AI2Bot|CCBot|cohere-ai|Bytespider" access.logRobots.txt Configuration
Universal Allow / Disallow Block
# — Emerging AI crawlers —
User-agent: AI2Bot
Allow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Allow: /
User-agent: cohere-ai
Allow: /
User-agent: Bytespider
Allow: /
# Swap Allow → Disallow for any bot you wish to block.Place this block above your User-agent: * wildcard group.
Throttling & Burst Control Strategies
| Bot | Crawl-delay Respected? | Recommended Throttle |
|---|---|---|
| AI2Bot | Partial | 2s delay + 429 >12 req/s |
| Cohere-AI | No | 429 + Retry-After |
| CCBot | No | Block overnight windows if bandwidth-sensitive |
| Bytespider | No | CDN cap 10 req/s per IP |
Troubleshooting Flowchart
- Add rules to robots.txt
- Test each user-agent:
curl -A "AI2Bot" https://yoursite.com/robots.txt - Watch logs for 24 hours
- Burst >12 req/s? Apply 429 gating
Schema & Content Optimisation
Product / Article JSON-LD Essentials
AI2Bot and CCBot ingest schema into open datasets that feed scholarly reviews and trend reports. Embed Product, Offer, and AggregateRating within 32 KB for maximum ingestion:
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Product",
"name": "River-Cycle Rain Jacket",
"sku": "RC-JKT-01",
"offers": {
"@type": "Offer",
"price": "149.00",
"priceCurrency": "USD",
"availability": "https://schema.org/InStock"
},
"aggregateRating": {
"@type": "AggregateRating",
"ratingValue": "4.7",
"reviewCount": "192"
}
}Add Article plus FAQPage schema to documentation and blog posts. These structured formats are prime targets for citation by downstream models built on Common Crawl data.
Cross-Industry Mini Cases
| Sector | Quick Win | Result |
|---|---|---|
| D2C Retail | Add sustainability schema | 6% lift in AI-crawler referral sales |
| B2B SaaS | Allow public docs, block /pricing | +2K citation backlinks from Cohere-powered help bots |
| Healthcare | Peer-review citations & HIPAA note | Aligns with EEAT trust layers |
Risk, Compliance & Licensing
Bandwidth — Throttle via 429; most ignore crawl-delay.
IP Ranges — Only AI2Bot publishes CIDR lists; others require UA filtering.
Licensing — Common Crawl redistributes data; clarify AI-training clauses in your Terms of Service.
Privacy — None of these bots bypass CAPTCHAs; gate sensitive endpoints accordingly.
Implementation Checklist
- Back up robots.txt
- Add universal allow/disallow block
- Test each UA with curl
- Monitor logs for spikes
- Tag GA4 traffic (
utm_source=ai2bot, etc.) - Audit schema coverage
- Review server load after 14 days
- Update SOP documentation
- Schedule quarterly crawl audit
- Book an expert SEO Audit for AI readiness
FAQs
What is AI2Bot?
AI2Bot is the crawler for the Allen Institute's Semantic Scholar and allied research models.
Does CCBot affect SEO?
No. It snapshots the open web for Common Crawl datasets and doesn't influence Google rankings.
How do I block Bytespider?
Add User-agent: Bytespider plus Disallow: / in robots.txt, then verify with curl.
Do emerging bots respect crawl-delay?
Only AI2Bot partially. Most ignore it—use HTTP 429 gating and CDN caps instead.
Where can I see Cohere-AI traffic?
Filter server logs for cohere-ai or create a GA4 dimension using utm_source=cohere.ai.
Next Steps
Future-proof your AI visibility with a comprehensive SEO Audit—our team benchmarks crawl health, schema depth, and emerging bot readiness in two weeks. Need authoritative content that earns citations? Explore our evidence-led SEO programs that turn insight into demand.