Who blocks AI · #1062 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does billboard.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. billboard.com’s robots.txt blocks 12 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and 9 more. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotBlocked ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotBlocked Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: www.billboard.com/robots.txt · 140 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	Allowed	no rule matches the home page

AI search

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`OAI-SearchBot`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 76 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: OAI-SearchBot`
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Blocked	line 116 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: PerplexityBot`
`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	Blocked	line 131 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: YouBot`

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 71 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 81 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 101 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 46 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 36 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Blocked	line 106 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 41 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Bytespider`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 51 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ChatGPT-User`
`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	Blocked	line 111 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher`

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.billboard.com/robots.txt · 140 lines

1User-agent: *

2Disallow: /wp-admin/

3Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

4Disallow: /?s=

5Disallow: /*/?s=

6Disallow: /search/

7Disallow: /search?

8Disallow: *?v02

9Disallow: *?replytocom

10Disallow: /*preview=true

11Disallow: /*theme_preview=true

13User-agent: anthropic-ai

14Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

15Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

16Disallow: /

18User-agent: cohere-ai

19Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

20Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

21Disallow: /

23User-agent: omgili

24Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

25Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

26Disallow: /

28User-agent: omgilibot

29Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

30Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

31Disallow: /

33User-agent: Applebot-Extended

34Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

35Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

36Disallow: /

38User-agent: Bytespider

39Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

40Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

41Disallow: /

43User-agent: CCBot

44Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

45Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

46Disallow: /

48User-agent: ChatGPT-User

49Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

50Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

51Disallow: /

53User-agent: ChatGPT

54Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

55Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

56Disallow: /

58User-agent: DeepSeek

59Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

60Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

61Disallow: /

63User-agent: DeepSeekBot

64Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

65Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

66Disallow: /

68User-agent: GPTBot

69Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

70Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

71Disallow: /

73User-agent: OAI-SearchBot

74Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

75Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

76Disallow: /

78User-agent: ClaudeBot

79Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

80Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

81Disallow: /

83User-agent: Claude-Web

84Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

85Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

86Disallow: /

88User-agent: Diffbot

89Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

90Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

91Disallow: /

93User-agent: FacebookBot

94Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

95Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

96Disallow: /

98User-agent: Google-Extended

99Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

100Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

101Disallow: /

102

103User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent

104Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

105Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

106Disallow: /

107

108User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher

109Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

110Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

111Disallow: /

112

113User-agent: PerplexityBot

114Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

115Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

116Disallow: /

117

118User-agent: Timpibot

119Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

120Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

121Disallow: /

122

123User-agent: Webzio-Extended

124Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

125Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

126Disallow: /

127

128User-agent: YouBot

129Allow: /culture/product-recommendations/

130Allow: /culture/brand-studio/

131Disallow: /

132User-agent: cXensebot

133Crawl-delay: 5

134

135User-agent: Tollbot/1.0

136Allow: /

137

138

139

140

What do the bots actually get?

This page reads robots.txt, which states what billboard.com 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 billboard.com Test a path in the robots.txt tester

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does billboard.com block GPTBot?

Yes. billboard.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 71: Disallow: /). GPTBot is OpenAI’s crawler for training data; blocking it doesn’t affect ChatGPT search, which uses OAI-SearchBot. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does billboard.com block ClaudeBot?

Yes. billboard.com’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 81: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does billboard.com block Google-Extended?

Yes. billboard.com’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 101: Disallow: /). 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 billboard.com block PerplexityBot?

Yes. billboard.com’s robots.txt disallows PerplexityBot from the whole site (line 116: Disallow: /). PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find billboard.com?

Not through its own crawler. billboard.com’s robots.txt disallows OAI-SearchBot from the whole site (line 76: Disallow: /). OAI-SearchBot is the crawler behind ChatGPT search; blocking it keeps the site out of ChatGPT’s search answers. Checked 9 November 2026.