Separate reader traffic
Cloudflare data showed GoogleBot, AppleBot, BingBot, headless browsers, curl traffic, and abnormal paths such as /wp-admin/install.php. The site needs to separate useful crawling from attack-surface noise.
AI websites should not treat every bot as bad traffic, but they should not ignore abnormal paths. Track source, verify identity, keep sitemap and robots healthy, and watch 404 and 504 patterns.
Requests are not readers
The useful question is not whether traffic looks busy; it is which activity represents readers, monitoring, crawlers, retries, or system errors.
Check the logs first
- Review Cloudflare top paths, status codes, and user agents weekly, especially abnormal paths, 404, 504, and bot sources
- Keep the test narrow: one priority page with clear topic, source links, internal links, and a conversion action
What still needs proof
Blocking useful crawlers can hurt discovery; ignoring abnormal paths creates security and analytics noise. Keep the original source open so the announcement, the evidence, and this site's interpretation stay separate.