iaskspider
iaskspider is the web crawler for iAsk (iask.ai), an AI search engine that answers questions directly rather than showing a list of links to click through. If your website is in its index, iAsk may mention your business when someone searches for what you offer. Two things worth knowing: there is no official documentation from the operator about how the crawler behaves, and it has been reported to ignore robots.txt — the standard file websites use to tell crawlers what they can or cannot access. iAsk is a smaller player compared to Google or Bing, so the impact on your AI visibility will be limited, though it is not negligible if your sector has little online competition.
- User-agent
iaskspideriaskspider/2.0- Does it respect robots.txt?
- No — it ignores the rules
- Official documentation
- https://iask.ai/
How to allow it in your robots.txt
User-agent: iaskspider
Allow: /How to block it (not recommended)
User-agent: iaskspider
Disallow: /Frequently asked questions
Should I block iaskspider?
It depends. If you have content you would rather not expose to AI search engines, blocking it makes sense — especially because iaskspider ignores robots.txt, the file where you normally tell crawlers what to skip. To block it effectively you would need to do so at the server or firewall level, since robots.txt will not stop it. If your content is public and you want visibility in AI-powered search engines, letting it through is reasonable, though iAsk has far less traffic than ChatGPT or Perplexity.
Does iaskspider affect my AI visibility?
It can influence whether iAsk mentions your business when someone asks a question related to what you offer. iAsk is a relatively new and less widely used AI search engine compared to ChatGPT or Google, so the direct impact is modest. That said, if your sector has limited online competition, being in its index can add visibility at no extra cost.
How do I know if iaskspider is visiting my website?
Check your server logs and look for the string 'iaskspider'. If you use Cloudflare or a similar service, you can spot it in the bot analytics dashboard. The operator does not provide any official tool to verify this, and there is no public technical documentation about the crawler.