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llms.txt GeneratorDo AI crawlers start on the homepage?
Usually no. GPTBot hits the homepage only 2.75% of the time, while ClaudeBot is more likely to touch the homepage at 19.18%.
The key numbers.
- GPTBot homepage rate
- GPTBot rarely starts on the homepage.
- 2.75%
- ClaudeBot homepage rate
- ClaudeBot is much more likely to touch the homepage.
- 19.18%
Crawler strategy should assume that many bots land deeper in the site architecture and may never use the homepage as a primary directory.
The evidence.
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| GPTBot homepage rate GPTBot rarely starts on the homepage. | 2.75% |
| ClaudeBot homepage rate ClaudeBot is much more likely to touch the homepage. | 19.18% |
Population and method
Built from 575,788 AI crawler visits across 84 brands and 314,501 unique URLs observed between June 11, 2025 and February 1, 2026.
Where the evidence stops
This study measures observable crawler traffic rather than hidden fetches or internal cache reads.
One dominant e-commerce brand was excluded to keep the page-type patterns more generalizable.
Visit share and homepage preference vary sharply by bot family, so averages can hide crawler-specific behavior.
What to do with this
- Optimize entry pages and internal links for the crawlers that actually show up in your logs.
- Treat crawler families differently because they do not read the same site architecture the same way.
- Use low-depth answer pages to improve the odds that a one-visit crawler still finds something citeable.
Operators must adjust their site architecture and log analysis to account for deep entry points, ensuring critical content is accessible without relying on homepage navigation.
Questions about this answer.
Cite this answer.
Source study: Crawler Behavior“Usually no. GPTBot hits the homepage only 2.75% of the time, while ClaudeBot is more likely to touch the homepage at 19.18%.”
Mack Grenfell · Do AI crawlers start on the homepage?
When AI Comes to Your Website · Trakkr Research · Updated 1 February 2026