A request can say it is GPTBot, ClaudeBot or another crawler. That name alone is not proof. CiteTrack separates crawler identity into trust levels so fake traffic does not inflate your AI visibility story.
The three states
- Verified network: the crawler name and official network evidence agree.
- User-agent only: the request name is recognized, but official verification is not available yet.
- Possible spoof: the request claimed a crawler name but did not pass verification or matched suspicious behavior.
How to use this
Use verified crawler totals for executive reporting. Use user-agent-only rows as useful context. Treat possible spoof rows as security/noise evidence, not proof that an AI platform crawled you.
Why some rows remain unverified
Verification depends on official network data and bounded background checks. If a site receives an abnormal burst of crawler-name traffic, CiteTrack limits verification queue growth and leaves excess rows unverified rather than allowing the queue or database to grow without bound.