DIY BUILD GUIDE
Build a crawler access checker
Fetch robots.txt, headers, and HTML; evaluate access directives, canonical data, and rendered output; then produce a fix list.
Prerequisites
- A list of public URLs to test.
- An HTTP client that records status and headers.
- A clear list of crawler user agents to evaluate.
Minimum architecture
Target URL -> robots, headers, and HTML checks -> issue list -> re-test.
Implementation steps
- Fetch robots.txt and the target response.
- Evaluate robots rules, X-Robots-Tag, meta robots, canonical, and rendered HTML.
- Write each finding as a URL-specific fix list, then re-test.
Output
An inspectable issue list with the tested URL, directive, observed value, and re-test status.
Runtime and cost
Software: Your own code and hosting
Runtime: Request and rendering infrastructure costs.
Data location: Your chosen report output.
Validate before relying on it
- Test robots rules.
- Inspect headers and meta tags.
- Re-test the target URL.
Boundary
The result is an access diagnosis, not proof of indexing or citation.
Follow this build AI crawler access checker guide to keep costs, validation, and limits visible.