Who blocks AI · #855 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does crunchbase.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. crunchbase.com’s robots.txt blocks 7 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and 4 more. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: www.crunchbase.com/robots.txt · 64 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	line 40 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: OAI-SearchBot`
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Allowed	line 40 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: PerplexityBot`
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	line 40 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: Claude-SearchBot`
`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 61 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Bytespider`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Allowed	line 40 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: ChatGPT-User`
`Claude-User`	Anthropic	Allowed	line 40 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: Claude-User`
`Perplexity-User`	Perplexity	Allowed	line 40 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: Perplexity-User`
`MistralAI-User`	Mistral	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Meta-ExternalFetcher`	Meta	Allowed	line 40 · `Allow: /` 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.crunchbase.com/robots.txt · 64 lines

1# Robots parsers use the most-specific matching User-agent group and do not

2# merge that group with User-agent: *. Repeat shared Allow rules in explicit

3# bot groups when those bots need the same render dependencies as standard crawlers.

5# ===== Standard crawlers (unchanged from today) =====

6User-agent: *

7Allow: /v4/md/applications/crunchbase

8Allow: /*.js$

9Disallow: /login

10Disallow: /register

11Disallow: /account

12Disallow: /reset-password

13Disallow: /subscriptions

14Disallow: /contribute

15Disallow: /add-new

16Disallow: /edit

17Disallow: /buy

18Allow: /buy/select-product

19Disallow: /account-setup

20Disallow: /verify

21Disallow: /admin

22Disallow: /v4

23Disallow: /home

24Disallow: /search

25Disallow: /discover

26Disallow: /textsearch

28# ===== TIER 1: AI answer/search agents - ALLOW all paths =====

29# They cite us -> citations + funnel. This group can crawl all paths on www.

30User-agent: OAI-SearchBot

31User-agent: ChatGPT-User

32User-agent: Claude-SearchBot

33User-agent: Claude-User

34User-agent: PerplexityBot

35User-agent: Perplexity-User

36User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher

37# + xAI/Grok answer agent once its UA token is published (verify)

38# Note: Applebot (Siri/Spotlight) & bingbot (Copilot) are search engines already

39# governed by the default `User-agent: *` group - no explicit entry needed.

40Allow: /

42# ===== TIER 2: AI training / bulk crawlers - BLOCKED (license to access) =====

43User-agent: GPTBot

44User-agent: Google-Extended

45User-agent: ClaudeBot

46User-agent: anthropic-ai

47User-agent: Claude-Web

48User-agent: cohere-ai

49User-agent: cohere-training-data-crawler

50User-agent: CCBot

51User-agent: AI2Bot

52User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent

53User-agent: Applebot-Extended

54User-agent: PanguBot

55User-agent: Bytespider

56User-agent: Diffbot

57User-agent: Omgilibot

58User-agent: Omgili

59User-agent: FacebookBot

60User-agent: ImagesiftBot

61Disallow: /

63Sitemap: https://www.crunchbase.com/www-sitemaps/sitemap-index.xml

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does crunchbase.com block GPTBot?

Yes. crunchbase.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 61: 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 crunchbase.com block ClaudeBot?

Yes. crunchbase.com’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 61: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does crunchbase.com block Google-Extended?

Yes. crunchbase.com’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 61: 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 crunchbase.com block PerplexityBot?

No. crunchbase.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 crunchbase.com?

Yes. crunchbase.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.