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Free Plugin by apasionados v2.0.0

Block Chat GPT via robots.txt

Blocks the ChatGPT-User bot that is used by plugins in ChatGPT to crawl websites through the WordPress virtual robots.txt file

Block Chat GPT via robots.txt

The facts

Rating
5★ from 1
Active installs
100+
Price
Free
Last updated
8 Aug 2023
Added
Apr 2023
Requires WP
5.9
Tested up to
WP 6.3.10
Requires PHP
7.4
Downloads
2,550

Our analysis

AI-assisted

Block Chat GPT via robots.txt is a WordPress plugin that modifies the virtual robots.txt file to prevent specific OpenAI bots, namely ChatGPT-User and GPTBot, from crawling and indexing your website. This can be useful for users who want to control which bots access their site and limit data collection by AI tools.

The plugin automatically adds the necessary lines to the robots.txt file when activated. It is designed for users who are familiar with how web crawlers operate and understand the implications of blocking these bots.

Best for: This plugin is suitable for website owners who want to restrict access to their site by certain AI bots.

What it does well

  • Blocks specific OpenAI bots from crawling your site
  • Automatically modifies the virtual robots.txt file
  • Available for free on the WordPress.org directory
  • Supports English and Spanish languages
  • Requires PHP 7.4 or higher

Where it falls short

  • Requires knowledge of web crawlers and robots.txt functionality
  • Limited information about the plugin's performance
  • Directory score indicates potential issues

Verdict

Block Chat GPT via robots.txt provides a straightforward solution for managing bot access, but it is best suited for users with technical knowledge of web crawling.

From the developer

apasionados's own description of Block Chat GPT via robots.txt, lightly tidied.

This plugin adds lines to the virtual robots.txt file that WordPress creates automagically if the file is not present physically on the server to block the OpenAI ChatGPT-User bot that is used by plugins in ChatGPT to crawl websites. Here is the information about the ChatGPT-User bot. It also blocks the the GPTBot user agent that may potentially be used to improve future models.

Please be aware of what this plugin does exactly: If you activate the plugin it will add some lines to the robots.txt file to tell Open AI Chat GPT bots (ChatGPT-User + GPTBot) to not to crawl and index parts of this website.

Please only activate this plugin if you know what you’re doing.

What can I do with this plugin?

This plugin adds the necessary lines to the virtual robots.txt file that WordPress creates automagically to block the OpenAI ChatGPT-User bot that is used by plugins in ChatGPT to crawl websites + the GPTBot user agent that may potentially be used to improve future models.

What ideas is this plugin based on?

None. After the launch of the OpenAI ChatGTP plugins that crawl websites, we needed a fast solution to add these lines to the robots.txt file and this was the solution we coded.

In August 2023 OpenAI added information about the GPTBot so we added this user-agent to the plugin.

What is the robots.txt file?

The robots.txt file is a plain text file located at the root folder of a domain (or subdomain) which tells web crawlers (like Googlebot) what parts of the website they should access and index.

The first thing a search engine crawler looks at when it is visiting a page is the robots.txt file and it controls how search engine spiders see and interact with the web pages.

System requirements

PHP version 7.4 or greater.
We require 7.4 or higher because we believe that everybody should be running a modern PHP version. When releasing this plugin WordPress recommends PHP 7.4 or higher. We would recommend 8.0 or higher as 7.4 has no security updates since 28 Nov 2022.

How to get this plugin in your Language!

The first release is avaliable in English and Spanish. In the “languages” folder we have included the necessary files to translate this plugin.

If you would like the plugin in your language and you’re good at translating, please use the native WordPress Translation functionality.

Read the full description on the official page →

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