Who blocks AI · #238 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does cbsnews.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. cbsnews.com’s robots.txt blocks 1 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotAllowed PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedAllowed CCBotAllowed

robots.txt: www.cbsnews.com/robots.txt · 55 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	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	Blocked	line 48 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Google-Extended`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`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	Allowed	no rule matches the home page

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.cbsnews.com/robots.txt · 55 lines

1# www.robotstxt.org/

2# www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156449

4User-agent: *

6Disallow: */search/*

7Disallow: /index.php/*

8Disallow: /election-results-data/*

9Disallow: /common

10Disallow: /htdocs/*

11Disallow: /user/login*

12Disallow: /app/?*

13Disallow: /network

14Disallow: /assets

15Disallow: /stories

16Disallow: /sections

17Disallow: */feed/

19# PER CBS-N ENG FINAL ROUTES DOC

21Disallow: /1318

22Disallow: /1319

23Disallow: /1328

24Disallow: /1344

25Disallow: /1770

26Disallow: /2240

27Disallow: /2300

28Disallow: /2303

29Disallow: /2304

30Disallow: /2305

31Disallow: /2306

32Disallow: /2307

33Disallow: /2308

34Disallow: /2332

35Disallow: /2741

36Disallow: /2994

37Disallow: /8301

38Disallow: /8324

39Disallow: /8601

40Disallow: /8614

41Disallow: /8618

42Disallow: /9742

43Disallow: /9744

45Sitemap: https://www.cbsnews.com/xml-sitemap/index.xml

47User-agent: GPTBot

48Disallow: /

49User-agent: MAZBot

50Disallow: /

51User-agent: panscient.com

52Disallow: /

53User-agent: proximic

54Disallow:

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does cbsnews.com block GPTBot?

Yes. cbsnews.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 48: 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 cbsnews.com block ClaudeBot?

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

Does cbsnews.com block Google-Extended?

No. cbsnews.com’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 cbsnews.com block PerplexityBot?

No. cbsnews.com’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 cbsnews.com?

Yes. cbsnews.com’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.