Most businesses should allow AI crawlers that power search and live answers, because blocking them can keep you out of AI recommendations, and then decide separately whether to allow crawling for AI training. Elementor 4.4 (beta) makes this easy with bot access controls that write robots.txt rules in three groups: Search, Answer and Train. Remember that robots.txt is a request, and some bots ignore it.
- Search and Answer bots help people find you.
- Training bots use content to build future models.
- Service businesses usually benefit from being visible.
- Publishers with paid content may choose to block training.
- robots.txt is not a security tool.
The three kinds of AI access
| Signal | Meaning | Typical choice |
|---|---|---|
| Search | Index pages for web search results | Allow |
| Answer | Fetch pages live to answer a user’s question | Allow for most businesses |
| Train | Collect content to train AI models | Your choice |
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Sensible settings by business type
- Local service business (clinic, salon, builder): allow all three. Being known to AI tools is mostly upside.
- Online shop: allow search and answer so products appear in AI shopping answers; training is optional.
- Publisher or course creator with paid or original content: allow search, consider answer, and block training if your content is your product.
How to set it in Elementor
- Open Elementor, Agent Ready, Bot Access.
- Set global defaults for Search, Answer and Train.
- Adjust individual bots or add custom ones if needed.
- Check yoursite.com/robots.txt to confirm the rules, and make sure another SEO plugin is not writing conflicting rules.
Blocking does not protect private data. Anything sensitive must sit behind a login, not just a robots.txt rule. For more on visibility, read is your website ready for AI search?
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I review robots.txt, llms.txt, schema and content so the right bots can read your site and the rest are kept out. Get an SEO quote.
Frequently asked questions
Should I block ChatGPT and other AI bots?
Usually not their search and answer bots if you want AI tools to recommend you. Training is a separate choice.
Does blocking AI training bots hurt SEO?
Blocking training-only bots does not affect Google search rankings.
Is robots.txt enough to stop AI scraping?
No. Well-behaved bots follow it, but it is a request, not a lock.
Where are Elementor bot access settings?
In Elementor 4.4 under Agent Ready, as part of the bot access controls.
Sources
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