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 Bytespider?

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

Does Bytespider respect robots.txt?

No, Bytespider by ByteDance has been observed ignoring robots.txt directives.

AI Training Ignores robots.txt

Bytespider

by ByteDance First seen: 2022-01

About

ByteDance's aggressive web crawler used to collect training data for their AI models including those behind TikTok and Doubao. Known for high crawl rates and ignoring rate limits.

Purpose

AI model training and content indexing

User Agent String

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 5.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Bytespider; spider-feedback@bytedance.com)

How to Control in robots.txt

🚫 Block Bytespider

User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /

✅ Allow Bytespider

User-agent: Bytespider
Allow: /

⚠️ Bytespider 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.

Complete Guide: How to Block Bytespider

Server-level blocking, nginx configs, Cloudflare rules, Next.js middleware, and more →

Is Bytespider crawling your site?

Run a free scan to check if ByteDance's crawler is accessing your website.

Check if Bytespider is crawling YOUR site →