Web Bot Auth
Web Bot Auth is a draft web standard that lets a bot or AI agent sign each request it sends to a website, so the site can check the bot is who it claims to be. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the group that writes many of the internet's standards, has a working group building it.
Source: IETF, HTTP Message Signatures for automated traffic (Web Bot Auth working group draft), checked October 29, 2026
What Web Bot Auth means for your business
The bot's operator publishes a public key at a set address on its own site and keeps a private key to sign each request, so a copied name alone won't pass. The website, or a service like Cloudflare in front of it, checks the signature against the published key.
As of October 29, 2026, Cloudflare checks these signatures and marks signed visits as verified bots, and its pay per crawl feature asks paying crawlers to identify themselves this way. Google calls the protocol experimental and signs some requests from Google-Agent, the name its AI agents use. It tells site owners to keep checking IP addresses and reverse DNS as well.
Google says site owners don't need to do anything. Bot settings at your host or CDN can decide which AI agents reach your booking and contact pages, and Cloudflare already reads these signatures. We'd check what yours does with bot traffic. If you want AI agents to be able to check your availability or send an inquiry for a buyer, getting your site ready for agents that act for buyers is where Web Bot Auth fits in.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, Google's AI Overview matched the IETF's description, citing the IETF, Cloudflare, Akamai, AWS and Google's own page. ChatGPT gave four possible meanings, put the signing standard last, and asked where the term came from.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
Related terms in crawlers and technical access
Find out where your brand stands.
Tell us what you're trying to figure out. We'll get back to you within one business day with a time to talk.