# The Cloudflare setting that can hide a site from AI crawlers

Status: DRAFT, nothing posted. Idea IB-0697. Single-image infographic, 2 slides, no cover.

## What it shows

Why the Cloudflare AI bot setting matters and how to check it from outside.

## Claims and sources

| Claim | Source (read 2026-10-11) |
|---|---|
| The zone's ai_bots_protection must not be blocking | .claude/rules/21-ranking-safe-cutover.md, Zone posture read |
| Cloudflare's AI-bot default is changing, a silent flip would hide a site from AI answers | .claude/rules/21-ranking-safe-cutover.md, Zone posture read |
| curl with GPTBot (also OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot) must return 200 | .claude/rules/21-ranking-safe-cutover.md, same bullet |
| Phrased as a crawler being able to read the site, not a ranking claim | Rule 04 wording |