How is this different from Google Analytics?

Google Analytics shows you traffic. Shadow shows you traffic, AI bot activity, what AI platforms say about your brand, AND tells you what to do about all of it. It's analytics + AI intelligence + action steps in one tool.

Do I need to install anything?

For basic monitoring (bot detection, AI perception, readiness score) — nope, just enter your URL. For full visitor analytics (clicks, behavior, sessions), add one script tag. One-click integrations for Vercel, Shopify, WordPress, and more.

Will it slow down my site?

No. The script is under 5KB and loads async. Zero impact on page speed or Core Web Vitals. External monitoring has literally no impact — it watches from the outside.

What AI bots does Shadow detect?

All of them. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Bytespider, Amazonbot, and dozens more. The Shadow Network means new bots get identified across all users instantly.

What do you mean by "actionable steps"?

Shadow doesn't just show you graphs. It says things like: "ChatGPT has your pricing wrong — add structured data to /pricing to fix it" or "Your bounce rate on /features is 68% — here's why and what to change." Specific, do-it-today recommendations.

Can Shadow block bots?

Shadow is a telescope, not a shield. It shows you who's visiting and what AI says about you. It generates block rules and robots.txt configs you can apply — but it doesn't intercept traffic.

Yes. Shadow never collects PII. IP addresses are hashed after classification. No cookies on your visitors. All Shadow Network data is anonymized. GDPR compliant by design.

How do I block Twitterbot?

Add this to your robots.txt file: User-agent: Twitterbot / Disallow: /

Does Twitterbot respect robots.txt?

No, Twitterbot by X (formerly Twitter) has been observed ignoring robots.txt directives.

AI Training Ignores robots.txt

Twitterbot

by X (formerly Twitter) First seen: 2012-06

About

Twitterbot is X's (formerly Twitter) web crawler used to fetch link previews, Open Graph metadata, and media for cards shown in posts. It also contributes to X's broader data collection infrastructure. Since Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, concerns have grown about X using crawled data to train Grok, X's in-house AI assistant. Many publishers block Twitterbot to limit exposure to X's AI training pipeline.

Purpose

Link card previews, Open Graph metadata fetching, and AI training data collection for Grok

User Agent String

Twitterbot

How to Control in robots.txt

🚫 Block Twitterbot

User-agent: Twitterbot
Disallow: /

✅ Allow Twitterbot

User-agent: Twitterbot
Allow: /

⚠️ Twitterbot has been observed ignoring robots.txt directives. You may need server-level blocking (e.g., firewall rules or user-agent filtering) to effectively prevent access.

Is Twitterbot crawling your site?

Run a free scan to check if X (formerly Twitter)'s crawler is accessing your website.

Check if Twitterbot is crawling YOUR site →