Only 1.3% of Shopify Stores Block AI Crawlers, Study Finds

A scan of 10,099 Shopify storefronts conducted between August 29 and September 2, 2026, found that just 133 stores — about 1.32% — block at least one AI crawler via robots.txt or meta tags. Training-focused bots such as GPTBot and CCBot were the most commonly blocked, while crawlers that fetch live data during user queries, like OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, were almost entirely unblocked. Only six stores block OAI-SearchBot, the crawler ChatGPT uses when shoppers search for products in real time. A notable pattern emerged where 28 stores shared an identical list of eight blocked crawlers, suggesting merchants are copying configurations rather than making independent decisions. The findings highlight that the vast majority of Shopify merchants are taking no active steps to restrict AI systems from accessing their product catalogues.