# We checked 9 website builders for AI crawler access. Hosted builders were almost always open

> Of small business sites whose homepage loaded, every Wix, Shopify, GoDaddy and Weebly site was open to AI crawlers. Where WordPress and Squarespace got stuck.

Canonical: https://www.preferly.ai/blog/website-builders-ai-crawler-access
Published: 2026-11-03
Last updated: 2026-11-03

By the Preferly team

**Short answer:** among the 3,319 small business sites where we could tell the builder, hosted builders were almost always open to AI crawlers. Every Wix, Shopify, GoDaddy and Weebly site in the sample was. Where sites got stuck, it was usually a custom setup or a security setting.

## Open to AI crawlers, by builder

| Builder | Open | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Wix | 233 of 233 | 100% |
| Shopify | 184 of 184 | 100% |
| GoDaddy | 153 of 153 | 100% |
| Weebly | 80 of 80 | 100% |
| Duda | 97 of 98 | 99.0% |
| Webflow | 52 of 53 | 98.1% |
| WordPress | 1,000 of 1,021 | 97.9% |
| Squarespace | 365 of 378 | 96.6% |
| Other or unknown | 967 of 1,119 | 86.4% |

One caution before reading too much into this: we could only tell the builder when the homepage loaded. Sites that failed on HTTPS or showed a full-page bot check mostly ended up as "unknown", so this table says how open each builder is once a page loads, not how often each one fails to load.

## Where the exceptions were

- **Squarespace:** 9 sites blocked all major AI crawlers and 4 blocked some. Squarespace offers a setting to block AI crawlers, and these look like that setting turned on.
- **WordPress:** 16 sites blocked some AI crawlers in robots.txt, and 2 showed a bot check.
- **Other or unknown:** 100 bot checks (most of them SiteGround's) and 51 sites blocking some AI crawlers.

## A quieter difference: robots.txt

Most builders publish a robots.txt for you. Webflow sites were the exception: 33 of 53 had none. That isn't a problem on its own, since no robots.txt means crawlers may read everything. It just means there's nowhere to set rules if you ever want to.

## What to check

If you're on a hosted builder, look for an "AI crawlers" or "block AI" setting in its SEO or privacy section and decide whether you want it. If you're on WordPress, ask your host about bot protection, and check your robots.txt. The [free AI crawler check](https://www.preferly.ai/ai-crawler-check) covers both.

Being readable is the first step. To see whether AI actually names your business, who it names instead and where it contradicts your website, get the [full $99 AI visibility audit](https://www.preferly.ai/ai-visibility-audit), paid once.

_Data: Preferly, "How many small business websites block AI crawlers?" (2026), https://www.preferly.ai/research/ai-crawler-study. We checked 4,111 small and local business websites in 26 US cities on Oct 22, 2026 and analyzed the 3,693 that responded. The aggregate data is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with that credit._

## Questions

### Is my Wix or Squarespace site blocking ChatGPT?

In our sample, almost never by default. Squarespace has a setting that blocks AI crawlers; 9 of 378 Squarespace sites blocked all of them, which suggests that setting was on. Check yours to be sure.

### Why do WordPress sites get stuck more?

WordPress runs on hosts you choose, with plugins and security settings you or your host add. Some of those block or challenge crawlers.