Estimated reading time: 3 min
As AI models like Google Bard and Vertex AI continue to evolve, website owners may prefer to restrict these bots from accessing their content. Fortunately, there are several methods to block AI crawlers, ensuring that your data remains protected. In this guide, we’ll explore the best ways to prevent Google Bard and Vertex AI from crawling your website effectively.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the best methods to block Google Bard and Vertex AI from crawling your site effectively.
1. Block Google Bard and Vertex AI Using robots.txt
The easiest way to prevent Google’s AI models from crawling your site is by adding a disallow rule in your robots.txt file.
Step-by-Step Guide
- Access your robots.txt file
- If using WordPress, go to Yoast SEO → Tools → File Editor to edit
robots.txt. - If you don’t have one, create a new
robots.txtfile in your root directory (public_html).
- If using WordPress, go to Yoast SEO → Tools → File Editor to edit
- Add the following lines to robots.txt:
User-agent: Google-Extended Disallow: / - Save the changes and check if it works by visiting:
👉yourwebsite.com/robots.txt
🚀 What This Does:
Google-Extendedis the user-agent used by Bard and Vertex for crawling.- This rule tells them not to access any part of your site.
2. Prevent Google AI Models Crawling Using HTTP Headers
For extra security, you can block AI crawlers at the server level using HTTP headers.
How to Implement:
📌 For Apache (.htaccess) – Add this to your .htaccess file:
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noai, noindex, nofollow"
</IfModule>
📌 For Nginx – Add this to your nginx.conf:
add_header X-Robots-Tag "noai, noindex, nofollow";
🚀 What This Does:
- Blocks AI crawlers from indexing your site.
- Works even if they ignore
robots.txt.
3. Use Meta Tags to Block AI Crawlers on Specific Pages
If you only want to block AI models from specific pages, add this meta tag to your WordPress <head> section.
How to Add in WordPress
- Open Appearance → Theme File Editor.
- Select
header.phpand add this inside<head>:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
<meta name="googlebot" content="noai">
- Save Changes.
🚀 What This Does:
- Prevents Google Bard and Vertex AI from indexing pages where this tag is present.
4. Blocking Other AI Bots (Optional)
If you want to block other AI crawlers like OpenAI GPTBot or Anthropic Claude, extend your robots.txt file:
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
🚀 Why This is Useful:
- Blocks AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and others from scraping your site’s content.
Final Thoughts
As AI-driven search engines and web crawlers become more prevalent, it is crucial to control how your content is accessed. By implementing robots.txt rules, HTTP headers, and meta tags, you can effectively block Google Bard, Vertex AI, and other AI crawlers from scraping your website.
Would you like more help setting this up? Leave a comment below! 🚀
💡 Need help setting this up on your WordPress site? Let us know in the comments! 🚀
Discover more from HelpZone
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
