Who blocks AI · #1088 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does aarp.org block AI crawlers?

Yes. aarp.org’s robots.txt blocks 2 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including CCBot and Bytespider. It also blocks Baiduspider among search engines.

GPTBotAllowed OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotAllowed PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedAllowed CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: www.aarp.org/robots.txt · 66 lines
llms.txt: none
Checked: 9 November 2026, as canaicrawl. We check again every week.

Every bot, and the line that decides

Search engines

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`Googlebot`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Bingbot`	Microsoft	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DuckDuckBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Applebot`	Apple	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`PetalBot`	Huawei	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`YandexBot`	Yandex	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Baiduspider`	Baidu	Blocked	line 51 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Baiduspider`

AI search

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`OAI-SearchBot`	OpenAI	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`YouBot`	You.com	Allowed	no rule matches the home page

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Google-Extended`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 45 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`GoogleOther`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 39 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Bytespider`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Claude-User`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Perplexity-User`	Perplexity	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`MistralAI-User`	Mistral	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Meta-ExternalFetcher`	Meta	Allowed	no rule matches the home page

SEO tools

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`AhrefsBot`	Ahrefs	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`SemrushBot`	Semrush	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`MJ12bot`	Majestic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DotBot`	Moz	Allowed	no rule matches the home page

View www.aarp.org/robots.txt · 66 lines

1# _____ _____

2# /\ /\ | __ \ | __ \

3# / \ / \ | |__) | | |__) |

4# / /\ \ / /\ \ | _ / | ___/

5# / ____ \ / ____ \ | | \ \ | |

6# /_/ \_\ /_/ \_\ |_| \_\ |_|

8# Robots.txt file created by https://www.aarp.org/

9# For domain: https://www.aarp.org/

10# Created 09-12-2017 Raymond Deschenes

11# Updated 9-18-2026 Kasia Lorenc - removed /rewards/

12# All robots will spider the domain

14User-agent: *

15Allow: /rewards/$

16Disallow: /*.pdf

17Disallow: /benefits/

18Disallow: /content/aarpe/en/home/

19Disallow: /content/aarpe/es/home/

20Disallow: /content/campaigns/

21Disallow: /content/dam/aarp/aarp_foundation/

22Disallow: /content/dam/aarp/Member-Benefits/AARP-Auto-Buying-Program-For-Member-Communications-Digital-Fulfillment.pdf

23Disallow: /content/experience-fragments/

24Disallow: /content/specialized-membership/staying-sharp/

25Disallow: /espanol/busqueda/

26Disallow: /espanol/vendor/

27Disallow: /events/details/

28Disallow: /everywhere/

29Disallow: /everywhere-configuration/

30Disallow: /oldlearn/

31Disallow: /playground-for-testing-stuff/

32Disallow: /qa/

33Disallow: /relationships/caregiving/

34Disallow: /secure-information/

35Disallow: /training-aarpe/

36Disallow: /vendor/

38User-agent: Bytespider

39Disallow: /

41User-agent: DeepSeekBot

42Disallow: /

44User-agent: CCBot

45Disallow: /

47User-agent: YisouSpider

48Disallow: /

50User-agent: Baiduspider

51Disallow: /

53User-agent: Sogou web spider

54Disallow: /

56Sitemap: https://www.aarp.org/sitemap.xml

57Sitemap: https://www.aarp.org/news-sitemap.xml

58Sitemap: https://www.aarp.org/sitemap.es-main-sitemap.xml

59Sitemap: https://www.aarp.org/sitemap.en-main-sitemap.xml

60Sitemap: https://www.aarp.org/sitemap.es-videos-sitemap.xml

61Sitemap: https://www.aarp.org/sitemap.en-videos-sitemap.xml

62Sitemap: https://www.aarp.org/press-sitemap.xml

63Sitemap: https://www.aarp.org/sitemap.en-eventdetails-sitemap.xml

What do the bots actually get?

This page reads robots.txt, which states what aarp.org asks of crawlers. A firewall or CDN can still refuse a bot that robots.txt allows. The live check requests the page as each bot and shows the status it gets.

Run a live check on aarp.org Test a path in the robots.txt tester

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does aarp.org block GPTBot?

No. aarp.org’s robots.txt lets GPTBot crawl the site. GPTBot is OpenAI’s crawler for training data; blocking it doesn’t affect ChatGPT search, which uses OAI-SearchBot. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does aarp.org block ClaudeBot?

No. aarp.org’s robots.txt lets ClaudeBot crawl the site. ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does aarp.org block Google-Extended?

No. aarp.org’s robots.txt lets Google-Extended crawl the site. Google-Extended is the token that controls whether Google may use pages for Gemini training and grounding; it doesn’t affect Google Search. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does aarp.org block PerplexityBot?

No. aarp.org’s robots.txt lets PerplexityBot crawl the site. PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find aarp.org?

Yes. aarp.org’s robots.txt lets OAI-SearchBot crawl the site. OAI-SearchBot is the crawler behind ChatGPT search; blocking it keeps the site out of ChatGPT’s search answers. Checked 9 November 2026.