Who blocks AI · #958 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does consumerreports.org block AI crawlers?

Yes. consumerreports.org’s robots.txt blocks 5 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, Google-Extended, CCBot and 2 more. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotAllowed PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: www.consumerreports.org/robots.txt · 48 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 38 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 35 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 32 · `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	Blocked	line 41 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: meta-externalagent`
`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	Blocked	line 44 · `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.consumerreports.org/robots.txt · 48 lines

1User-agent: *

2Disallow: /access

3Disallow: /cro/search.htm

4Disallow: /search*

5Disallow: /health/search.htm

6Disallow: /content/dam/cro/interactive/PRO410_Sept%20Premium.pdf

7Disallow: /bin/home/calendar/

8Disallow: /*jcr:content*

9Disallow: /*preview_print.html$

10Disallow: /*.print.html$

11Disallow: /data/*

12Disallow: /*?*page=

13Disallow: /*?*sort=

14Disallow: /*?*view=

16User-agent: Zing-BottaBot/2.0

17Disallow: /

19User-agent: Google-HTTP-Java-Client/1.17.0-rc (gzip)

20Disallow: /video/.*

22User-agent: istellabot/t.1

23Disallow: /video/.*

25User-agent: Pcore-HTTP/v0.24.5

26Disallow: /video/.*

28User-agent: trendkite-akashic-crawler

29Disallow: /

31User-agent: CCBot

32Disallow: /

34User-agent: Google-Extended

35Disallow: /

37User-agent: GPTBot

38Disallow: /

40User-agent: meta-externalagent

41Disallow: /

43User-agent: meta-externalfetcher

44Disallow: /

46User-agent: meta-webindexer

47Disallow: /

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.
26 October 2026: started blocking Meta-ExternalFetcher.

Questions

Does consumerreports.org block GPTBot?

Yes. consumerreports.org’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 38: 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 consumerreports.org block ClaudeBot?

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

Does consumerreports.org block Google-Extended?

Yes. consumerreports.org’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 35: 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 consumerreports.org block PerplexityBot?

No. consumerreports.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 consumerreports.org?

Yes. consumerreports.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.