NerdPress Adds Precision AI Bot Blocking Across All Service Tiers

New offering paves the way for future pay-per-crawl endeavors

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Oct. 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- NerdPress today announced that it has partnered with Cloudflare to block AI bots from unauthorized crawling for all its clients. Effective immediately, the capability is included across every NerdPress service tier, giving publishers and site owners an opt–in way to protect their sites from AI crawlers and get visibility on AI traffic.

The proliferation of AI bots and crawlers has dramatically altered the internet landscape, leaving independent publishers and site owners on their own to battle scraping and content misuse. Current solutions are piecemeal, complicated, and cost-prohibitive for most small businesses, and many options are ineffective due to a reliance on crawlers to properly self-identify.

"We've seen the powerlessness many creators have felt amid the rise of generative AI," said Andrew Wilder, NerdPress founder and CEO. "By collaborating with industry leaders like Cloudflare and Raptive to develop this solution and coordinating collective action among creators, we're helping sites of all sizes protect their livelihoods and strengthen the open web."

"Raptive has long advocated for the rights of independent creators, and this collaboration with NerdPress marks a meaningful move in the fight for a fairer internet," said Paul Bannister, Chief Strategy Officer at Raptive. "AI companies are building trillion-dollar technologies on the backs of creators, and it's past time they start paying for the content that powers their systems. Blocking unauthorized scraping is a critical step toward restoring control — and value — to the people who make the open web worth visiting."

"Cloudflare believes creators should have control over how their original work is accessed, used, and monetized," said Will Allen, VP of Product at Cloudflare. "This partnership with NerdPress and the deployment of our AI Crawl Solution is a powerful, simple way to put that control directly back into the hands of thousands of site owners, enabling them to make their own choices."

NerdPress's Bot Blocking service includes:

• Full-spectrum blocking of AI crawlers, including those that ignore robots.txt or spoof User Agents
• Proactive blocking of any new AI crawlers or bots which may be developed
• Granular allow–listing for selected AI crawlers while blocking others
• Custom 402 "Payment Required" responses directing crawlers to licensing contacts, laying the groundwork towards full Pay Per Crawl functionality in the future.

NerdPress will continue enhancing this functionality with a WordPress dashboard for granular, self-service controls, along with additional Cloudflare feature configuration—reflecting the company's commitment to proactive, people–first support for independent publishers and small businesses.

Founded in 2014, NerdPress is a certified B Corporation that provides professional WordPress support for publishers and small business owners. Our services are designed to take the stress out of website management and offer peace of mind through proactive care, fast fixes, and friendly guidance so our clients can focus on their content, not their code. Learn more at nerdpress.net.

Media Contact:
Miranda Wicker
Communications Manager
[email protected]
(805) 410-4166

SOURCE NerdPress