AI Scrape Protect
Protect your website from AI scraping by adding opt-out instructions to your robots.txt file and including meta tags in the HTML ``.
Safe pick
Yes — AI Scrape Protect is a safe, well-maintained plugin to use in 2026. It runs on 400+ sites, is rated 4.7/5 and was last updated 4 weeks ago, and scores 80/100 on our health check.
- Actively developed — last update 4 weeks ago
- Tested with the latest WordPress (7.1)
- Momentum — downloads up 101.2% vs the previous 30 days
- Small user base (400+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where AI Scrape Protect stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| AI | #68 |
| AI scraping protection | #2 |
| robots.txt | #17 |
| scraping | #4 |
| security | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 from 3 reviews
About AI Scrape Protect
From the official readme · v5.1Description
AI Scrape Protect is a WordPress plugin designed to protect your website from scraping for AI training purposes. It achieves this by adding opt-out instructions to the robots.txt file for the most common AI scraping bots and including meta tags to control how your content is used.
Version 5.0 introduces a full settings page with granular per-bot control, categorised bot management, AJAX-powered toggles, and support for custom user agents.
Features
- Adds
User-agentandDisallowrules to yourrobots.txtfile to block a comprehensive list of AI scraping bots. - Generates compact robots.txt output: all blocked bots are grouped under a single
Disallow: /directive. - Introduces meta tags in the HTML
<head>to provide additional instructions to AI bots. - Separate toggles for content meta tags (
noai,nosummary,DisallowAITraining) and image meta tags (noimageai). - Settings page with five categorised tabs: Search Engines, AI Training, AI Search & Answers, General Indexing, Custom Bots.
- Group toggle per category to block or allow all bots in that category at once.
- Individual per-bot toggle with description and company information for each bot.
- Custom bots tab: add and remove your own user agent strings.
- Global enable/disable toggle and separate toggles for robots.txt and meta tags.
- “Apply default settings” button to reset all options.
- Admin bar icon linking to the settings page (visible to administrators only). Icon reflects the current enabled state.
- Physical
robots.txtdetection notice: warns you if a file in your root directory overrides WordPress’s virtual robots.txt. - Fully AJAX-powered settings page: changes are saved instantly without page reloads.
- Extensible via the
aisp_user_agentsfilter for developers. - Multisite note: settings are stored per site using
get_option/update_option. Network-wide configuration is not supported.
Note: robots.txt and meta tag opt-out instructions are not always respected by all bots. This plugin is a measure to discourage scraping rather than a guaranteed technical block.
Installation
- Upload the
ai-scrape-protectfolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory. - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
- Go to Settings > AI Scrape Protect to configure your preferences.
Frequently asked questions
How does this plugin protect my site from AI scraping?
The plugin adds specific User-agent entries to your robots.txt file to instruct common AI scraping bots not to crawl your site. It also adds meta tags in the HTML to signal AI bots that your content should not be used for training or summarisation.
Will this completely stop AI scraping of my site?
No. robots.txt and meta tag directives are voluntary signals. Most reputable AI companies respect them, but malicious or poorly behaved scrapers may not. This plugin is a measure to discourage scraping, not a technical enforcement mechanism.
I have a physical robots.txt file in my WordPress root. Will the plugin work?
No. When a physical robots.txt file exists, WordPress’s virtual robots.txt is bypassed entirely, and this plugin’s modifications will not be applied. The plugin will display a warning on its settings page when a physical file is detected. Remove or rename the physical file to allow the plugin to function.
Can I add bots that are not in the list?
Yes. Go to Settings > AI Scrape Protect and open the Custom Bots tab. Enter the exact user agent token as it appears in your server logs.
What is the difference between AI Training bots and AI Search & Answers bots?
AI Training bots collect your content to train language models. AI Search & Answers bots retrieve content to generate answers for users of AI search tools like ChatGPT Search or Perplexity. Blocking AI Search bots may prevent your site from appearing in AI-generated answers. Blocking AI Training bots does not affect your visibility in regular search engines.
What is the difference between Search Engines and the other categories?
Search engine bots such as Googlebot and Bingbot are allowed by default. Disabling one will add it to the blocked list and remove it from the explicit allow block in robots.txt. Only do this if you intentionally want to remove your site from that search engine.
Can I allow some bots while blocking others?
Yes. Use the individual toggles on the settings page to control each bot separately.
What does the aisp_user_agents filter do?
Developers can use this filter to add or modify bots programmatically from a theme or another plugin, without editing the plugin files directly.
Does this plugin work on Multisite?
Settings are stored per site using standard WordPress options. Network-wide configuration is not supported.
I deactivated the plugin. What happens to my settings?
Your settings are preserved in the database. Reactivating the plugin will restore your previous configuration. If you want to remove all plugin data, use the “Apply default settings” button before deactivating, or delete the options manually from the database.
Changelog
Adds eleven new bots across AI Training and General Indexing categories, including MistralAI-Training, KimiBot, NavuBot, and marketing bots (disabled by default). Bot list is now sorted alphabetically per category. Tested up to WordPress 7.1.
5.1
- Added new AI training bots: MistralAI-Training, Google-CloudVertexBot, KimiBot, NavuBot, FishBot, WARDBot, BorderxBot.
- Added marketing and data broker bots to General Indexing category (disabled by default): AwarioSmartBot, AwarioRssBot, SemrushBot-SWA, QualifiedBot.
- Sorted bot list alphabetically per category.
- Updated activation hook to use named function instead of anonymous function.
- Tested up to WordPress 7.1.
5.0
- Complete rewrite with modular file structure (includes/class-robots.php, class-meta-tags.php, class-admin-bar.php, class-settings-page.php, class-ajax.php, bots.php).
- Added full settings page under Settings > AI Scrape Protect.
- Added AJAX-powered toggles: all settings save instantly without page reloads.
- Added five bot categories: Search Engines, AI Training, AI Search & Answers, General Indexing, Custom Bots.
- Added individual per-bot toggles with descriptions and company information.
- Added group toggle per category.
- Added Custom Bots tab for user-defined user agent strings.
- Added global enable/disable toggle and separate toggles for robots.txt and meta tags.
- Added “Apply default settings” button.
- Added physical robots.txt detection notice.
- Added admin bar icon linking to settings page (administrators only). Icon reflects current enabled state.
- Switched robots.txt output to compact grouped format (all bots under a single Disallow: /).
- Separated meta tags into content group (noai, nosummary, DisallowAITraining) and image group (noimageai).
- Removed duplicate meta name=”robots” tags; each group now outputs one combined tag.
- Removed deprecated bot entries: anthropic-ai, Claude-Web (replaced by ClaudeBot), BardBot (Google Bard is now Gemini), NeevaBot (Neeva shut down in 2023).
- Added new bots: Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, Google-Agent, Google-Extended, GoogleOther, GPTBot-Preview, ClaudeResearchBot, FirecrawlAgent, iAskAI-Crawler, Perplexity-User.
- Replaced Always Allowed category with Search Engines: all search engine bots are now individually toggleable, not locked. Includes Googlebot variants and Bingbot.
- Updated Requires PHP to 8.0.
- Tested up to WordPress 7.0.
- All links updated to codesurf.eu.
- Extensible via aisp_user_agents filter.
4.6
- Added six new AI scraping bots to the block list: 360Spider, ChatGLM-Spider, Sogou, Baiduspider, ErnieBot, DeepseekBot.
4.5
- Removed DuckDuckBot from the blocklist.
- Specifically allowed Googlebot, Googlebot-Image, Googlebot-News, Google-PageSpeed, Google-Site-Verification and Lighthouse.
4.4
- Improved compatibility with other plugins modifying robots.txt by no longer injecting a redundant “User-agent: *” directive.
4.3
- Increased priority for the robots.txt modification.
- Updated modify_robots_txt to add all User-agent rules in a single loop.
Screenshots
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FAQ
AI Scrape Protect: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 16, 2026
Is AI Scrape Protect free?
Yes. AI Scrape Protect is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is AI Scrape Protect safe to use in 2026?
Yes — AI Scrape Protect is a safe, well-maintained plugin to use in 2026. It runs on 400+ sites, is rated 4.7/5 and was last updated 4 weeks ago, and scores 80/100 on our health check.
How many websites use AI Scrape Protect?
AI Scrape Protect is active on 400+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 5,362 times since it launched in September 2024. It was downloaded 1,161 times in the last 30 days.
Does AI Scrape Protect work with WordPress 7.1?
Yes. The developer has tested AI Scrape Protect up to WordPress 7.1.3, the latest release. It requires WordPress 5.0 or newer.
What PHP version does AI Scrape Protect need?
AI Scrape Protect requires PHP 8.0 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was AI Scrape Protect last updated?
The latest version, 5.1, was released on September 18, 2026 (4 weeks ago).
Who makes AI Scrape Protect?
AI Scrape Protect is developed and maintained by Daan Verbaan.
What are the best alternatives to AI Scrape Protect?
The most popular alternatives to AI Scrape Protect are Elementor Website Builder (10M+ installs), All in One SEO (2M+ installs) and AI Agent by SiteGround (1M+ installs).
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