{"id":344658,"date":"2026-07-28T22:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T22:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/ai-bot-log\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T22:33:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T22:33:57","slug":"forge-ai-bot-log","status":"publish","type":"plugin","link":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/forge-ai-bot-log\/","author":13200129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"version":"1.2.2","stable_tag":"1.2.2","tested":"7.0.2","requires":"5.8","requires_php":"7.4","requires_plugins":null,"header_name":"Forge AI Bot Log \u2013 AI Crawler Detection, Verification & Blocking","header_author":"Forge Creative","header_description":"See which AI bots are crawling your site, learn what each one does, and control their access. Logs AI crawler visits, shows 24-hour \/ 7-day \/ 30-day \/ all-time activity, and emails you a monthly summary.","assets_banners_color":"","last_updated":"2026-07-28 22:33:57","external_support_url":"","external_repository_url":"","donate_link":"","header_plugin_uri":"https:\/\/forge.co.nz\/wordpress-plugins\/","header_author_uri":"https:\/\/forge.co.nz\/","rating":0,"author_block_rating":0,"active_installs":0,"downloads":29,"num_ratings":0,"support_threads":0,"support_threads_resolved":0,"author_block_count":0,"sections":["description","installation","faq","changelog"],"tags":{"1.2.2":{"tag":"1.2.2","author":"forgeonline","date":"2026-07-28 22:33:57"}},"upgrade_notice":[],"ratings":[],"assets_icons":[],"assets_banners":[],"assets_blueprints":{},"all_blocks":[],"tagged_versions":["1.2.2"],"block_files":[],"assets_screenshots":[],"screenshots":[]},"plugin_section":[262246],"plugin_tags":[2353,232,4866,9837,12753],"plugin_category":[36],"plugin_contributors":[265383],"plugin_business_model":[],"class_list":["post-344658","plugin","type-plugin","status-publish","hentry","plugin_section-dashboard-widgets","plugin_tags-ai","plugin_tags-analytics","plugin_tags-bots","plugin_tags-crawler","plugin_tags-robots-txt","plugin_category-analytics","plugin_contributors-forgeonline","plugin_committers-forgeonline"],"banners":[],"icons":{"svg":false,"icon":"https:\/\/s.w.org\/plugins\/geopattern-icon\/forge-ai-bot-log.svg","icon_2x":false,"generated":true},"screenshots":[],"raw_content":"\n

Any script can claim to be GPTBot. This plugin checks whether it really is.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Most AI bot trackers read the user-agent string and take it at face value \u2014 so a scraper that sends User-agent: GPTBot<\/code> gets logged as OpenAI. Forge AI Bot Log verifies each visit against the crawler's own published infrastructure using forward-confirmed reverse DNS \u2014 the technique Google, OpenAI and Anthropic recommend for confirming their own crawlers \u2014 and labels every hit Verified<\/strong> or Spoofed<\/strong>. You find out which AI traffic genuinely came from OpenAI, and which was something else wearing its name.<\/p>\n\n

Verification covers every crawler that publishes a way to check it, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Perplexity, Amazon, Apple and Meta. Bots with no published verification method are labelled honestly rather than guessed at.<\/p>\n\n

Beyond verification, Forge AI Bot Log<\/strong> shows you exactly which AI crawlers and assistants are visiting your WordPress site \u2014 GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot, Bytespider and many more \u2014 and explains what each one actually does.<\/p>\n\n

Key features<\/h4>\n\n
    \n
  • Live dashboard<\/strong> \u2014 bot visits for the last 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, plus a complete searchable log.<\/li>\n
  • Bot directory<\/strong> \u2014 click any bot for a plain-English explanation of who owns it, whether it trains AI models \/ powers AI search \/ fetches pages live, and whether it obeys robots.txt.<\/li>\n
  • Most-crawled content<\/strong> \u2014 see which of your pages AI bots are reading most.<\/li>\n
  • Verified \/ Spoofed labelling<\/strong> \u2014 forward-confirmed reverse DNS on every tracked hit, so impersonators are flagged instead of trusted. Results are cached and throttled to keep it off the critical path.<\/li>\n
  • Access control<\/strong> \u2014 block or allow each bot with one click (writes robots.txt rules), plus a hard-block .htaccess snippet for bots that ignore robots.txt.<\/li>\n
  • Monthly email summary<\/strong> \u2014 sent to the site admin on the 1st of each month at 9am, covering the previous month.<\/li>\n
  • New-bot alerts<\/strong> \u2014 optional email the first time a brand-new AI bot appears.<\/li>\n
  • Reliable capture<\/strong> \u2014 an in-PHP logger, an optional must-use early logger, and a server access-log importer for sites behind full-page caching or a CDN.<\/li>\n
  • Privacy-friendly<\/strong> \u2014 only logs bots (not human visitors), with optional IP anonymisation and configurable data retention.<\/li>\n
  • CSV export<\/strong> \u2014 download the full or filtered activity log for your own analysis.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n

    Why it matters<\/h4>\n\n

    AI crawlers may use your content to train models, cite you in AI search answers, or read your pages on a user's behalf. Forge AI Bot Log makes that traffic visible and gives you the controls to manage it.<\/p>\n\n

    External services<\/h3>\n\n

    Cross-promotion feed (optional). If you enter a promo feed URL in Settings, the plugin fetches that URL to populate the \"more plugins\" block in its own emails. Only the request is made; no site, user, or visitor data is transmitted. No feed URL is configured by default.<\/p>\n\n\n

      \n
    1. Upload the forge-ai-bot-log<\/code> folder to \/wp-content\/plugins\/<\/code>, or install via Plugins \u2192 Add New.<\/li>\n
    2. Activate the plugin.<\/li>\n
    3. Visit Forge AI Bot Log<\/strong> in the admin menu.<\/li>\n
    4. (Optional, for cached sites) Copy mu-plugin\/forge-ai-bot-log-mu.php<\/code> into \/wp-content\/mu-plugins\/<\/code> for earlier capture, or use Settings \u2192 Import from server access log.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n
      \n

      Does this slow down my site?<\/h3><\/dt>\n

      No. It logs only matched AI bots, on an early hook, and reverse-DNS verification is throttled and cached.<\/p><\/dd>\n

      Will it catch bots if I use a caching plugin or CDN?<\/h3><\/dt>\n

      Full-page caches can serve bots without running PHP. Use the included must-use early logger and\/or the access-log importer to capture those hits.<\/p><\/dd>\n

      Does blocking a bot really stop it?<\/h3><\/dt>\n

      robots.txt is advisory. Well-behaved bots obey it; some (e.g. Bytespider) are reported to ignore it. The plugin also generates an .htaccess hard-block snippet for those.<\/p><\/dd>\n\n<\/dl>\n\n\n

      1.2.2<\/h4>\n\n
        \n
      • Fixed: genuine bots visiting over IPv6 are no longer incorrectly marked \"Spoofed\" by DNS verification.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n

        1.2.1<\/h4>\n\n
          \n
        • Removed the remote bot-list auto-updater; the bundled bot list now updates via plugin releases.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n

          1.2.0<\/h4>\n\n
            \n
          • Added an External services disclosure for the optional promo feed.<\/li>\n
          • Added a Settings shortcut to the Plugins screen.<\/li>\n
          • New-bot alert emails are now sent on a background schedule instead of during the visit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n

            1.1.1<\/h4>\n\n
              \n
            • Fixed: the .htaccess hard-block snippet now only lists bots you've actually blocked that ignore robots.txt, so it can't accidentally suggest blocking an allowed retrieval bot.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n

              1.1.0<\/h4>\n\n
                \n
              • Added cross-promotion: advertise your other plugins in the monthly summary and new-bot alert emails, with optional remote feed and automatic UTM tracking.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n

                1.0.0<\/h4>\n\n
                  \n
                • Initial release.<\/li>\n<\/ul>","raw_excerpt":"See which AI bots crawl your site, learn what each one does, control their access, and get a monthly email summary.","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/plugin\/344658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/plugin"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/plugin"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344658"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wporg\/v1\/users\/forgeonline"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"plugin_section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/plugin_section?post=344658"},{"taxonomy":"plugin_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/plugin_tags?post=344658"},{"taxonomy":"plugin_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/plugin_category?post=344658"},{"taxonomy":"plugin_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/plugin_contributors?post=344658"},{"taxonomy":"plugin_business_model","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcd.wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/plugin_business_model?post=344658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}