this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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everytime i check nginx logs its more scrapers then i can count and i could not find any good open source solutions

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[–] Fedditor385@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (9 children)

I just realized an interesting thing - if I use Gemini, and tell it to do deep research, it actually goes to the websites it knows/finds, and looks up the content to provide up-to-date answers. So, some of those AI crawlers are actually not crawlers, but actual users who just use AI instead of coming directly to the site.

Soo... blocking AI completely could also potentially reduce exposure, especially as more and more people use AI to basically do searches instead of browsing themselves. That would also explain the amount of requests daily - could be simply different users using AI to research for some topic.

Point is, you should evaluate if the AI requests are just proxies of real users, and blocking AI blocks real users from knowing your site exists.

[–] daddycool@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (5 children)

some of those AI crawlers are actually not crawlers, but actual users who just use AI instead of coming directly to the site. Soo.. blocking AI completely could also potentially reduce exposure.

Normally, websites want users to come to their site, instead of an AI search engine "stealing" the content and presenting it as it's own. Yes, AI search engines are more convenient for the user, but in the end it will discourage website creators and thereby cut of it's own "food supply".

[–] nfreak@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 days ago

Yeah I'd consider blocking out both the bots and AI-users a win-win lmao

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