Who operates iAskBot?

iAskBot is operated by iAsk. It functions as iAsk's AI assistant crawler.

Does iAskBot respect robots.txt?

Yes. iAskBot generally follows robots.txt directives, so you can allow or disallow it with a rule for its user agent.

Should I block iAskBot?

Usually no. Blocking iAskBot can remove your pages from the AI answers and search results it powers, which reduces visibility. Only block it to deliberately opt out.

iAskBot - What It Is & How to Handle It

What is iAskBot?

iAskBot is iAsk's AI assistant crawler. iAskBot crawls and indexes web content to power iAsk.ai, an AI question-answering search engine.

iAskBot helps decide whether you show up in AI answers. It fetches and indexes pages so its assistant can cite them in responses, which means the content it can reach is the content that can be quoted, linked, and recommended to users. For generative engine optimization, keeping iAskBot allowed is important: block it and you effectively opt out of being cited on that AI surface.

Tracking which AI crawlers and agents reach your site, and what they do once there, is the foundation of generative engine optimization. See our guides to AI crawlers and robots.txt to control automated access and protect your AI search visibility.

Want to see every AI bot hitting your site? Promptwatch turns your server and CDN logs into a live view of AI crawler and agent traffic, so you can watch ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and others crawl your pages and connect those visits to real citations and revenue. Learn more in AI crawler logs.

See every AI bot hitting your site

Promptwatch turns your server and CDN logs into a live view of AI crawler and agent traffic. Watch ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and more crawl your pages in real time, see exactly what they take, and connect every crawl to the citations and revenue it drives.

How to handle iAskBot

Most sites keep iAskBot allowed, because blocking it can remove your pages from the AI answers and search results it powers. Only disallow it if you specifically want to opt out of that surface.

To control iAskBot, add a rule for its user agent to your robots.txt:

User-agent: iAskBot
Disallow: /

iAskBot generally honors robots.txt directives.

Examples

After publishing a new comparison page, a marketer checks whether iAskBot has fetched it so the content can appear in AI answers.
An SEO lead keeps iAskBot allowed in robots.txt to preserve visibility in AI-powered search.