AI Visibility docs / Feature guides
AI access check: can AI reach your store?
If AI assistants can't read your store, nothing else counts. The AI access check looks at your live storefront: whether it's password-protected, which AI crawlers your robots.txt lets in, the files AI agents look for, and the refund and shipping policies they quote. It costs nothing and runs on every plan. Find it under AI Access → Access check.
The result is refreshed once it is more than 6 hours old, and whenever you click Check again.
Store password
If your store is password-protected, AI assistants and shopping agents can't read any page of it, so they can't recommend it. Your AI access score is 0 until the password is off. Remove it under Online Store → Preferences in Shopify when you're ready to sell.
AI crawlers
The app reads your robots.txt and checks each AI crawler on your home page, a product page and a collection page.
| Provider | Crawlers that answer shoppers | Training crawler |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI (ChatGPT) | OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User | GPTBot |
| Perplexity | PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User | |
| Anthropic (Claude) | Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User | ClaudeBot |
| Google (Gemini) | Googlebot | Google-Extended |
| Microsoft (Bing, Copilot) | Bingbot |
Search and user crawlers read your pages to answer shoppers, so they need to be let in. Training crawlers only collect text to train AI models. Blocking those is your choice, and it doesn't count against you.
If a crawler that answers shoppers is blocked, it's usually a rule in your theme's robots.txt. Shopify's help center explains how to edit robots.txt, or ask your theme developer.
What AI agents look for
- Shopify agent profile (/.well-known/ucp): lets AI agents find your store's catalog and checkout. Shopify adds it to open stores.
- agents.md: instructions for AI agents. Shopify serves one for open stores. If it's missing, check your theme hasn't replaced
agents.md.liquid. - llms.txt: a summary of your store for AI. Optional: few AI assistants read it today, so it's never the first thing to fix.
Policies agents quote
AI shopping agents check your refund and shipping policies before they recommend a store, and answer delivery questions from them. If either is missing, add it in Shopify under Settings → Policies: days, condition and who pays return shipping for refunds; costs, delivery times and where you ship for shipping.
Instant indexing (IndexNow)
IndexNow tells Bing, Yandex and the other IndexNow search engines the moment a page changes. Bing's index is what ChatGPT search reads, so your changes reach AI answers sooner.
Every change the app makes for you (an approved product fix, a published page) is sent within minutes. You can also click Send all products to Bing under AI Access → Instant indexing. Instant indexing is paused while your store is password-protected.
Next: the agent test
The access check tells you whether AI can get in. The agent test (Growth and Pro) goes further: an AI shopping agent tries to find and buy your products.
See where AI recommends your store. Free plan, no credit card.