In short. Kinsta can reclassify verified AI crawlers when their request rate creates a separate traffic category.
Definition: Kinsta Bot Protection is a beta MyKinsta control that classifies requests by traffic type. Its documented categories separate AI crawlers from verified bots, then identify excessive-rate AI crawlers when AI traffic generates unusually high request volumes.
Key facts
- Kinsta allows most verified bots regardless of the selected protection level, including major search crawlers, API bots, and AI bots. Kinsta's Bot Protection documentation says its own rules can reclassify AI crawlers and excessive-rate crawlers even when they are verified.
- Kinsta defines an AI crawler as a bot that scans and collects website content for AI systems. The documentation names Cloudflare-verified bots and GPTBot as examples.
- Excessive-rate AI crawlers are AI crawlers making unusually high request volumes that may affect server performance or resource use.
- At the Challenge bots and Challenge everyone levels, Kinsta challenges excessive-rate AI crawlers automatically.
How does Kinsta separate the categories?
Kinsta starts with a verified-bot category. It describes verified bots as automated traffic from legitimate, verified companies, including Google, Bing, monitoring tools, SEO tools, the Kinsta uptime bot, many API bots, and AI bots. The category is therefore broader than AI traffic alone.
The same documentation then adds two separate classifications:
AI crawlers
Excessive-rate AI crawlers
The AI crawler category covers bots that scan and collect website content to train, analyze, or power AI models. Kinsta says some identify themselves and their purpose, while others make frequent requests, including requests for uncached assets. The excessive-rate category covers the subset whose request volume may negatively affect server performance or resource use.
Kinsta applies its own classification rules on top of Cloudflare's official verified-bot list. That means verified status alone does not prevent an AI crawler or an excessive-rate crawler from being placed in a separate category. The opened documentation does not state a numeric request threshold for the excessive-rate label.
What does verified mean in the supporting Cloudflare taxonomy?
Cloudflare's verified-bot documentation defines a verified bot as one that is transparent about its identity and purpose and does not abuse the access that this identity earns. It gives two requirements: honest self-identification and non-abusive behavior. Identification can use Web Bot Auth, a published IP list with a stable user-agent, or reverse DNS. Non-abusive behavior includes obeying robots.txt, maintaining reasonable request rates, and avoiding observed attempts to evade site-owner preferences or attack sites.
Cloudflare's AI bots documentation classifies AI activity by behavior. Its three directly manageable AI-related behaviors are Search, which collects or indexes content for later questions; Agent, which acts in real time on a person's behalf; and Training, which crawls content to train or fine-tune a model. A single bot can have more than one behavior. Kinsta's excessive-rate category therefore describes request intensity in addition to the bot's identity or purpose.
How does the protection level handle excessive-rate AI traffic?
Kinsta documents four protection levels. Block malicious traffic is the default. Block automations blocks automated and malicious traffic. Challenge bots blocks automated and malicious traffic and challenges likely bots and unclassified traffic. Challenge everyone also challenges likely humans.
For excessive-rate AI crawlers, the documented behavior at the two challenge levels is automatic challenge. Kinsta says this lets legitimate users or verified services generating high request volumes confirm that they are human by completing the challenge. The challenge can include browser-based checks, a CAPTCHA or interactive test, or background validation.
Where can the categories be inspected?
The Request breakdown chart covers all requests made to a site in the past 24 hours and shows how Kinsta classified them. Its list includes Verified bots, Likely bots, AI crawlers, Excessive-rate AI crawlers, Unclassified traffic, Automated traffic, and Malicious traffic. The Top traffic report can filter the last 24 hours by traffic type and then show top paths, user agents, countries, and IPs. These are the documented places to compare the AI and excessive-rate categories with other automated traffic.
The separate Block AI crawlers setting can block AI crawlers, including verified crawlers, while leaving search engine crawlers such as GoogleBot and Bing outside that setting's scope.
Related terms
FAQ
Does verified status keep an AI crawler in the verified-bot category?
No. Kinsta documents that its own rules can reclassify AI crawlers and excessive-rate crawlers even when they are verified bots.
Does blocking AI crawlers also block GoogleBot and Bing?
Kinsta says its Block AI crawlers setting only blocks AI crawlers. It does not include search engine crawlers such as GoogleBot and Bing.
What happens to excessive-rate AI crawlers at Challenge bots?
Kinsta challenges them automatically. A legitimate user or verified service can pass the challenge by completing the verification step.
What does Cloudflare require for a verified bot?
Cloudflare requires honest self-identification and non-abusive behavior. Its examples of deterministic identification include Web Bot Auth, a published IP list with a stable user-agent, and reverse DNS.
Sources
- Kinsta, "Tools - Bot Protection", 12 June 2026
- Cloudflare, "Bots", 1 July 2026
- Cloudflare, "Verified bots", 8 October 2026
Check how a page reads to answer engines. Open the GEO score analyzer