Who blocks AI · #1177 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does coindesk.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. coindesk.com’s robots.txt blocks 9 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and 6 more. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotBlocked Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: www.coindesk.com/robots.txt · 169 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	Blocked	line 120 · `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	Blocked	line 51 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Amazonbot`
`YouBot`	You.com	Allowed	no rule matches the home page

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 103 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 71 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 99 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 67 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 59 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Blocked	line 108 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 63 · `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.coindesk.com/robots.txt · 169 lines

1User-agent: *

2Allow:

3Disallow: /pf/api/v3/*

4Disallow: /api/

5Disallow: /_vercel/

6Disallow: /exchange-api/

7Disallow: /?t=

8Disallow: /?s=

9Disallow: /?q=

10Disallow: /search?q=

11Disallow: /search?s=

12Disallow: /auth/login

13Disallow: /auth/*

14Disallow: /layer2/

15Disallow: /consensus-magazine/

16Disallow: /*/amp

18Disallow: /es/layer2/

19Disallow: /es/consensus-magazine/

20Disallow: /uk/layer2/

21Disallow: /uk/consensus-magazine/

22Disallow: /ru/layer2/

23Disallow: /ru/consensus-magazine/

24Disallow: /fil/layer2/

25Disallow: /fil/consensus-magazine/

26Disallow: /it/layer2/

27Disallow: /it/consensus-magazine/

28Disallow: /fr/layer2/

29Disallow: /fr/consensus-magazine/

30Disallow: /pt-br/layer2/

31Disallow: /pt-br/consensus-magazine/

32Disallow: /de/layer2/

33Disallow: /de/consensus-magazine/

34Disallow: /nl/layer2/

35Disallow: /nl/consensus-magazine/

36Disallow: /ko/layer2/

37Disallow: /ko/consensus-magazine/

38Disallow: /zh/layer2/

39Disallow: /zh/consensus-magazine/

40Disallow: /tr/layer2/

41Disallow: /tr/consensus-magazine/

42Disallow: /id/layer2/

43Disallow: /id/consensus-magazine/

44Disallow: /ja/layer2/

45Disallow: /ja/consensus-magazine/

47# AI Allow/Disallow Rules

49User-agent: Amazonbot

50Allow: /price/

51Disallow: /

53User-agent: anthropic-ai

54Allow: /price/

55Disallow: /

57User-agent: Applebot-Extended

58Allow: /price/

59Disallow: /

61User-agent: Bytespider

62Allow: /price/

63Disallow: /

65User-agent: CCBot

66Allow: /price/

67Disallow: /

69User-agent: ClaudeBot

70Allow: /price/

71Disallow: /

73User-agent: Claude-Web

74Allow: /price/

75Disallow: /

77User-agent: cohere-ai

78Allow: /price/

79Disallow: /

81User-agent: DataForSeoBot

82Allow: /price/

83Disallow: /

85User-agent: Diffbot

86Allow: /price/

87Disallow: /

89User-agent: FacebookBot

90Allow: /price/

91Disallow: /

93User-agent: FriendlyCrawler

94Allow: /price/

95Disallow: /

97User-agent: Google-Extended

98Allow: /price/

99Disallow: /

100

101User-agent: GPTBot

102Allow: /price/

103Disallow: /

104

105User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent

106User-agent: meta-externalagent

107Allow: /price/

108Disallow: /

109

110User-agent: omgili

111Allow: /price/

112Disallow: /

113

114User-agent: omgilibot

115Allow: /price/

116Disallow: /

117

118User-agent: PerplexityBot

119Allow: /price/

120Disallow: /

121

122User-agent: Quora-Bot

123Allow: /price/

124Disallow: /

125

126User-agent: Scrapy

127Allow: /price/

128Disallow: /

129

130User-agent: TurnitinBot

131Allow: /price/

132Disallow: /

133

134# Sitemap indexes — canonical (EN) + per-locale

135Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/sitemap-index.xml

136Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/es/sitemap-index.xml

137Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/uk/sitemap-index.xml

138Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/ru/sitemap-index.xml

139Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/fil/sitemap-index.xml

140Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/it/sitemap-index.xml

141Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/fr/sitemap-index.xml

142Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/pt-br/sitemap-index.xml

143Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/de/sitemap-index.xml

144Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/nl/sitemap-index.xml

145Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/ko/sitemap-index.xml

146Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/zh/sitemap-index.xml

147Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/tr/sitemap-index.xml

148Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/id/sitemap-index.xml

149Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/ja/sitemap-index.xml

150

151# Video sitemap

152Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/video-sitemap

153

154# News sitemaps (Arc) — EN + per-locale

155Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index

156Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-es

157Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-uk

158Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-ru

159Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-fil

160Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-it

161Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-fr

162Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-pt-br

163Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-de

164Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-nl

165Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-ko

166Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-zh

167Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-tr

168Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-id

169Sitemap: https://www.coindesk.com/arc/outboundfeeds/news-sitemap-index-ja

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.
2 November 2026: robots.txt readable again.

Questions

Does coindesk.com block GPTBot?

Yes. coindesk.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 103: 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 coindesk.com block ClaudeBot?

Yes. coindesk.com’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 71: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does coindesk.com block Google-Extended?

Yes. coindesk.com’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 99: 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 coindesk.com block PerplexityBot?

Yes. coindesk.com’s robots.txt disallows PerplexityBot from the whole site (line 120: Disallow: /). PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find coindesk.com?

Yes. coindesk.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.