Title: Referenced – AI Crawler Tracking
Author: Referenced AI
Published: <strong>November 3, 2026</strong>
Last modified: November 4, 2026

---

Search plugins

![](https://ps.w.org/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/assets/banner-772x250.png?rev
=3782885)

![](https://ps.w.org/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=
3782885)

# Referenced – AI Crawler Tracking

 By [Referenced AI](https://profiles.wordpress.org/referenced/)

[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking.1.0.0.zip)

 * [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/#description)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/#reviews)
 *  [Installation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/#installation)
 * [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/#developers)

 [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/)

## Description

Referenced – AI Crawler Tracking counts visits from known AI crawlers, such as GPTBot,
OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Googlebot, and posts hourly day totals
to your Referenced AI account. You can then see which AI engines are reading which
pages of your site.

The plugin is a reporter only. It writes nothing to your pages or content, and it
records no visitor data: no IP addresses, cookies or user accounts. For each known
crawler it keeps a count per bot, path and day in one small table of its own.

You need a [Referenced AI](https://getreferenced.ai) account and a connection token.
Until you save a token, nothing is sent anywhere.

### External Services

This plugin sends crawler visit totals to [Referenced AI](https://getreferenced.ai),
the service whose account you connect it to.

 * Service: [Referenced AI](https://getreferenced.ai)
 * Endpoint: https://getreferenced.ai/api/ingest/bot-hits
 * What is sent: the bot name, the page path, the date, the visit count, the plugin
   version, the WordPress version and your site’s home URL.
 * When: once an hour, and when you press “Send now” on Settings  Referenced. Nothing
   is sent until a connection token has been saved.

Privacy policy: [getreferenced.ai/privacy](https://getreferenced.ai/privacy)
 Terms
of service: [getreferenced.ai/terms](https://getreferenced.ai/terms)

### Credits

 * Geist and Geist Mono fonts, SIL Open Font License 1.1 (see assets/fonts/OFL.txt).
 * Interface icons from Heroicons, MIT licence, copyright Tailwind Labs, Inc.
 * AI company logos from Lobe Icons, MIT licence, copyright 2023 LobeHub; the Amazon
   mark is from Simple Icons, CC0.
 * Full notices are in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt. The logos belong to their respective
   owners and are used only to identify those crawlers.

## Screenshots

[⌊Settings → Referenced: what the plugin sends, your connection status, and the 
AI crawlers that visited in the last 7 days.⌉⌊Settings → Referenced: what the plugin
sends, your connection status, and the AI crawlers that visited in the last 7 days
.⌉[

Settings  Referenced: what the plugin sends, your connection status, and the AI 
crawlers that visited in the last 7 days.

[⌊Every AI crawler that visited in the last 7 days, with its visits and how many
pages it read.⌉⌊Every AI crawler that visited in the last 7 days, with its visits
and how many pages it read.⌉[

Every AI crawler that visited in the last 7 days, with its visits and how many pages
it read.

[⌊The dashboard widget: AI crawler visits this week at a glance.⌉⌊The dashboard 
widget: AI crawler visits this week at a glance.⌉[

The dashboard widget: AI crawler visits this week at a glance.

## Installation

 1. Upload the plugin zip under Plugins  Add New  Upload Plugin, or install it from
    Plugins  Add New once it is listed. Then activate it.
 2. In Referenced AI, open Settings  Connections and create a WordPress token.
 3. In WordPress, open Settings  Referenced and paste the token.
 4. The first report arrives within about an hour of your site’s next visits (WordPress
    runs scheduled tasks on traffic). Use “Send now” in Settings  Referenced to send
    at once.

## FAQ

### Why do some crawler visits not appear?

Pages served from a full-page cache or a CDN never reach PHP, so the plugin cannot
count them. Static files such as images, scripts and PDFs are served without PHP
too, so they are not counted either. This is a known blind spot: the numbers are
a floor, not an exact total.

### What leaves my site?

Only the following, and only after you have saved a token: the bot name, the page
path, the date, the visit count, the plugin version, the WordPress version and your
site’s home URL. No visitor IP addresses, cookies, user agents or personal data 
are sent.

### Does it slow my site down?

No. Each request costs a handful of cheap string comparisons (about twenty substring
checks) and one small row write only when a known crawler matched.

### Why does every page show as “/” with plain permalinks?

With plain permalinks (`/?p=123`) the page is identified by its query string, and
query strings are not sent. Every page is then reported as `/`. Pretty permalinks(
Settings  Permalinks) give each page its own path.

### Can I stop it?

Yes. Use Disconnect on Settings  Referenced to remove the token and stop all reporting,
or deactivate the plugin. Deleting the plugin removes its table and options.

## Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

## Contributors & Developers

“Referenced – AI Crawler Tracking” is open source software. The following people
have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

 *   [ Referenced AI ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/referenced/)
 *   [ Ben Miller ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/bmillerz/)

[Translate “Referenced – AI Crawler Tracking” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking)

### Interested in development?

[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/),
check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/),
or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).

## Changelog

#### 1.0.0

 * First release.

## Meta

 *  Version **1.0.0**
 *  Last updated **10 hours ago**
 *  Active installations **Fewer than 10**
 *  WordPress version ** 6.0 or higher **
 *  Tested up to **7.1.4**
 *  PHP version ** 7.4 or higher **
 * Tags
 * [AI](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/ai/)[analytics](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/analytics/)
   [bots](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/bots/)[crawlers](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/crawlers/)
   [seo](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/seo/)
 *  [Advanced View](https://wordpress.org/plugins/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/advanced/)

## Ratings

No reviews have been submitted yet.

[Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/reviews/#new-post)

[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/reviews/)

## Contributors

 *   [ Referenced AI ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/referenced/)
 *   [ Ben Miller ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/bmillerz/)

## Support

Got something to say? Need help?

 [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/referenced-ai-crawler-tracking/)