Original research · Bakersfield, CA

We checked 100 Bakersfield business websites. 1 in 14 turn away AI crawlers.

ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude read business websites when people ask them for a recommendation. We checked whether 100 independent Bakersfield businesses let those tools in, and we list every result below. Most do. But 7 turn at least one AI crawler away, and 10 more have technical problems that can get in the way.

By Ravinder Cheema, Clicks Dynasty · Published

100
local business websites in 19 industries
7
turned away an AI crawler (robots.txt rule or firewall)
10
had a broken robots.txt or security certificate error
81%
had no problems we could find
10
explicitly welcome AI crawlers

Can AI tools read these websites?

Each step removes the sites that failed it. 87 of 100 websites passed every step.

Websites checked100
Responded to our AI crawler98
Secure connection worked94
Server let the AI crawler in92
robots.txt allows AI crawlers87

Which AI tools get turned away

The 7 sites that turned away an AI crawler, by who was blocked.

Anthropic's Claude (robots.txt rule)4
ChatGPT's browsing agent, ChatGPT-User (robots.txt rule)1
Any AI crawler we sent (server firewall, 403)2

robots.txt by the numbers

We could read 81 of the 100 robots.txt files. Percentages below are out of those 81, except where noted.

89%list a sitemap for crawlers (72 of 81)
3have a broken sitemap line: a relative path, another domain, or about 90 other businesses' sitemaps
9don't list a sitemap at all
7set a crawl delay for every crawler, which slows Bing (and Microsoft Copilot) without affecting Google
8name specific AI crawlers in their robots.txt
2block training-only crawlers such as GPTBot, CCBot or Bytespider
6of 100 return a web page instead of a robots.txt file
4of 100 have a security certificate error

What we found

1. 7 of 100 sites turn away at least one AI crawler (about 1 in 14).Five have robots.txt rules that stop an AI tool. Two more have a firewall that refused our AI crawler even though their robots.txt allows it. For these businesses, at least one AI assistant can't read the site when a customer asks about them.
2. Accounting firms were hit hardest: 3 of 8 blocked Claude.Three of the eight CPA firms we checked stopped Anthropic's Claude from reading their site, on two separate days. Their sites look alike, so this may come from a shared website provider's default rather than a choice each firm made.
3. One law firm blocks ChatGPT's browsing agent.Its robots.txt blocks ChatGPT-User, which ChatGPT uses to open a page when someone asks about that business, as well as OpenAI's training crawler.
4. Veterinarians had the most problems: 4 of 7 sites.Three vet sites return a web page instead of a robots.txt file and one has a firewall that refuses AI crawlers. Pest control was next, with 2 of 4.
5. WordPress sites were the cleanest.40 of the 100 sites run on WordPress, and 38 of them had no problems. Every broken robots.txt and certificate error was on another platform.
6. Only 10 sites go out of their way to welcome AI.They allow AI crawlers by name, use Cloudflare's content signals (ai-input=yes) or point AI tools to an llms.txt file. Everyone else allows AI only because their robots.txt doesn't mention it.
7. Hidden surprises turn up in robots.txt files.One accounting firm's robots.txt lists about 90 sitemaps for unrelated businesses in other states, apparently left over from its web host's template. Another site's sitemap points to a leftover "redesign" domain.

Results by industry

IndustrySitesTurned away AIOther problemsWelcomes AINo problems
Veterinarian713–43%
Pest control4–2–50%
Restaurant2–1–50%
Accountant83––62%
Chiropractor6–1–67%
Electrician51–180%
Auto repair6–1183%
Dentist61–183%
Orthodontist6–1183%
Roofing6–1183%
Pool7––186%
Lawyer91––89%
HVAC8––1100%
Plumber6–––100%
Landscaping4––1100%
Med spa4––1100%
Solar3––1100%
Insurance2–––100%
Real estate1–––100%

Industries with only 1 or 2 sites are too small to compare; they are shown for completeness.

Results by website platform

Identified from each site's robots.txt where possible. Sites we couldn't read are counted as "Other / not identified."

PlatformSitesTurned away AIOther problemsNo problems
WordPress402–95%
Cloudflare-managed4––100%
Wix4––100%
Squarespace3––100%
Joomla1––100%
Drupal1––100%
Other / not identified4751064%

All 100 websites

Is your business on this list? We'll check and fix AI crawler access for free for any business in this study. Book a free check. Think we got your result wrong? Let us know and we'll recheck and update it.

#IndustryResultWhat we foundWebsite

How to check and fix your own site

Open yoursite.com/robots.txt in your browser. If you see Disallow: / under any of these names, that AI tool can't read your site: OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, Bingbot or Applebot. To let them in, add this to your robots.txt:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot User-agent: ChatGPT-User User-agent: PerplexityBot User-agent: Perplexity-User User-agent: Claude-SearchBot User-agent: Claude-User Allow: /

Blocking training crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot or CCBot is a separate choice. It keeps your content out of future AI models, and it doesn't stop AI search tools from recommending you.

Check your site in 10 seconds

Paste your robots.txt into our free checker and see which AI crawlers can reach you. Nothing is uploaded.

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How we did this study

Which sites100 independent Bakersfield businesses found through web searches for 20 local categories (dentists, plumbers, lawyers, HVAC and more). National chains and directories were left out.
What we checkedEach site's robots.txt file on September 28, 2026, with a second check on September 29, using an AI web-reading tool (Anthropic's Claude). We applied the same rules our open-source tool local-seo-lint uses.
What counts as "turned away"A robots.txt rule that blocks an AI search or browsing agent from the whole site, or a server that refused our AI crawler with a 403 error. Blocks on training-only crawlers are reported separately.
LimitsWe checked each site from one AI crawler and re-checked the uncertain results; one early result was a false alarm and has been corrected. "Did not respond" results can be temporary network problems, so we don't count them as blocks. Firewalls can treat each AI company differently, so results for ChatGPT or Perplexity may differ.

Data license: free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. Please credit "Clicks Dynasty, Bakersfield AI Crawler Study" and link to this page. Related: California AI Visibility Index.

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