Safe AI & LLM Bots

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:
wrtn.ai

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?

✅ **No SEO Impact** - Blocking WRTN AI does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. WRTN AI is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.
Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

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.

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: WRTNBot Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: WRTNBot Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: WRTNBot Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block WRTN AI if ($http_user_agent ~* "WRTNBot") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block WRTN AI SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "WRTNBot" bad_bot Order Allow,Deny Allow from all Deny from env=bad_bot
Meta robots tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
X-Robots-Tag header
X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is WRTN AI safe to allow?

Yes, WRTN AI is a **safe and legitimate** crawler operated by WRTN. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.
Verify by reverse-DNS lookup: legitimate WRTN AI requests resolve to WRTN's domain.

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
  • Respects standard robots.txt directives

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for WRTN AI?
The official user-agent string for WRTN AI is: WRTNBot. Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from WRTN AI by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.
Is WRTN AI safe?
Yes, WRTN AI is a **safe and legitimate** crawler operated by WRTN. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.
Will blocking WRTN AI hurt my SEO?
✅ **No SEO Impact** - Blocking WRTN AI does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. WRTN AI is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.
How do I block WRTN AI in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /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?
WRTN AI is operated by WRTN and is expected to fetch and parse /robots.txt before crawling, following RFC 9309. For hard enforcement, combine robots.txt with server-level IP or user-agent blocking.
How do I verify if WRTN AI is crawling my site?
Search your web server access logs for the string WRTNBot (case-insensitive: grep -i "WRTNBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

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