Brands that block GPTBot, the bot OpenAI uses to collect web pages, are named in 31.5 ChatGPT answers on average, against 20.7 for brands that allow it, 52% more. Blocking OpenAI does not take a brand out of ChatGPT's answers; it goes with fewer links to the brand's own pages.
Analysis of 468 brands and 813 frequently cited websites · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, and robots.txt files from the public HTTP Archive, September 2026
Key Findings
- 1.Brands that block OpenAI's GPTBot are named in 31.5 ChatGPT answers on average, against 20.7 for brands that allow it, 52% more.
- 2.22% of major brands block at least one AI bot in their robots.txt file, and 79 of 468 block OpenAI's GPTBot.
- 3.Across five AI engines, brands that block any AI bot are named in 101.8 answers on average, against 63.6 for brands that allow them all.
- 4.61% of brands that block GPTBot are still named by ChatGPT at least once.
- 5.Frequently cited websites that block GPTBot get 23.2 ChatGPT citations on average, against 34.5 for websites that allow it.
Summary
A marketing director reads that publishers are blocking OpenAI's bot and asks the web team whether the company should do the same. The worry in the room is simple: if we block ChatGPT, will ChatGPT forget us? For well-known brands, the data says no.
Every website decides which bots may read its pages through a small file called robots.txt. Blocking AI bots is a choice about content licensing and control, and it is easy to assume it comes at the cost of AI visibility. Knowing what actually happens to brands that block lets a company make that choice on the facts.
Brands that block GPTBot are named in 31.5 ChatGPT answers on average, 52% more than the 20.7 for brands that allow it. AI learns about well-known brands from many sources, not only their own sites. The cost shows up in links instead: websites that block GPTBot are cited as sources less often by ChatGPT.
What we measured
We took the 500 brands in the Suff Digital AI Visibility Index and matched 468 of them to the robots.txt file on their homepage in the public HTTP Archive, collected in September 2026. For each brand we recorded whether that file blocks GPTBot and other AI bots, then compared how often blocking and non-blocking brands were named in AI answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews.
A brand is "named" when its name appears in the text of an answer; a website is "cited" when the answer links to one of its pages as a source. We ran a second test on 813 websites cited at least 50 times across AI answers and Google's top 10 results, comparing how often ChatGPT cited the pages of those that block GPTBot and those that do not. The median is the middle brand in each group.
Brands that block GPTBot are still named by ChatGPT
Brands blocking GPTBot average 31.5 ChatGPT mentions; brands allowing it average 20.7. Across all five AI engines, brands blocking any AI bot average 101.8 mentions against 63.6, and the typical brand in each group is named in 21 answers against 5. 48 of the 79 brands that block GPTBot, 61%, are still named by ChatGPT at least once.
Source: Suff Digital analysis of 468 brands and 813 frequently cited websites · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, and robots.txt files from the public HTTP Archive, September 2026
Blocking brands are also less likely to be invisible: 23% of them are never named in any AI answer, against 33% of brands that allow every AI bot. ChatGPT names brands from what news sites, reviews and forums write about them, whether or not it can read the brand's own website. The gap describes which brands choose to block, well-known names that are widely written about, rather than a reward for blocking.
Which AI bots brands block
105 of the 468 brands, 22%, block at least one AI bot. GPTBot, the bot OpenAI uses to collect pages for training, is the most blocked, by 79 brands. CCBot, the Common Crawl bot whose archive feeds many AI models, is blocked by 66 and Anthropic's bots by 65.
Source: Suff Digital analysis of 468 brands and 813 frequently cited websites · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, and robots.txt files from the public HTTP Archive, September 2026
OAI-SearchBot, the separate OpenAI bot behind ChatGPT's search results, is blocked by 49 brands, fewer than GPTBot. Google-Extended, which controls whether Google may use a site for its AI models, is blocked by 51 and PerplexityBot by 50. Many brands draw a line between bots that train AI models and bots that fetch pages to answer a live question.
Blocking goes with fewer links to your own pages
Citations tell a different story from mentions. Among 813 frequently cited websites, those that block GPTBot get 23.2 ChatGPT citations on average, against 34.5 for those that allow it. 119 of the 177 blocking websites are still cited by ChatGPT at least once.
The two measures diverge because they come from different places. A brand's name can appear in ChatGPT's answer whenever other pages describe it. A citation, the link a reader can click, points to the website itself, and websites that keep OpenAI's bot out are linked less often. Blocking can keep your name in the answer while the click goes to someone else's page.
What this means for marketing and web teams
Blocking GPTBot is not an off switch for AI visibility. If your brand is well known, ChatGPT will keep naming you from third-party sources. Decide on blocking based on content licensing, server load and traffic, not on fear of disappearing from answers.
If you want ChatGPT to cite and link your own pages, keep OAI-SearchBot allowed and weigh carefully before blocking GPTBot. Check your robots.txt against the current list of AI bots at least once a year, because new bots appear and old rules can block more than you intended. A review of AI bot access fits naturally into technical seo services, alongside the rest of your site's crawl settings.
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<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/blocking-gptbot-ai-recommendations">Brands That Block GPTBot Still Get Named by ChatGPT: 31.5 Mentions vs 20.7 for Brands That Allow It - Suff Digital</a></p>
Cite this study
Suff Digital. (2026). Brands That Block GPTBot Still Get Named by ChatGPT: 31.5 Mentions vs 20.7 for Brands That Allow It. https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/blocking-gptbot-ai-recommendations
Brands That Block GPTBot Still Get Named by ChatGPT: 31.5 Mentions vs 20.7 for Brands That Allow It - Suff Digital - https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/blocking-gptbot-ai-recommendations
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