Who blocks AI · #870 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does express.co.uk block AI crawlers?

Yes. express.co.uk’s robots.txt blocks 7 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and 4 more. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotBlocked ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotBlocked Google-ExtendedAllowed CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: express.co.uk/robots.txt · 99 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 66 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: OAI-SearchBot`
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Blocked	line 72 · `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 81 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: YouBot`

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 63 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 84 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Allowed	line 99 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 78 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 69 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`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	Blocked	line 60 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: AhrefsBot`
`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 express.co.uk/robots.txt · 99 lines

1#170820-DXD-6728

3User-agent: *

4Disallow: /myexpress/

5Disallow: /printer/ # We'll keep the print version for our newspaper

6Disallow: /users/ #

7Disallow: /sponsored/ # Advertorials

8Disallow: /trackings/ # Adserving

9Disallow: /34722903/ # Adserving

10Disallow: /search?*

11Disallow: /videos/get_video_by_uid/

12Disallow: /videos/viewmeta/

13Sitemap: https://www.express.co.uk/sitemap.xml

15User-agent: grapeshot

16Disallow:

18User-agent: Googlebot-News

19Disallow: /myexpress/

20Disallow: /printer/ # We'll keep the print version for our newspaper

21Disallow: /users/ #

22Disallow: /fun/ #

23Disallow: /sponsored/ # Advertorials

24Disallow: /trackings/ # Adserving

25Disallow: /34722903/ # Adserving

26Disallow: /sponsoredfeatures

27Disallow: /search?*

28Disallow: /videos/get_video_by_uid/

29Disallow: /videos/viewmeta/

30Sitemap: https://www.express.co.uk/googlenews.xml

32User-agent: ia_archiver

33Disallow: /

35User-agent: Nutch

36Disallow: /

38User-agent: ias_crawler

39Crawl-delay: 10.0

41User-agent: ias_wombles

42Crawl-delay: 10.0

44User-agent: ias-ie

45Crawl-delay: 10.0

47User-agent: daumoa

48Disallow: /

50User-agent: Sosospider

51Disallow: /

53User-agent: rogerbot

54Disallow: /

56User-agent: semetrical

57Disallow: /

59User-agent: AhrefsBot

60Disallow: /

62User-agent: GPTBot

63Disallow: /

65User-agent: OAI-SearchBot

66Disallow: /

68User-agent: Applebot-Extended

69Disallow: /

71User-agent: PerplexityBot

72Disallow: /

74User-agent: Perplexity-ai

75Disallow: /

77User-agent: CCBot

78Disallow: /

80User-agent: YouBot

81Disallow: /

83User-agent: ClaudeBot

84Disallow: /

86User-agent: anthropic-ai

87Disallow: /

89User-agent: Claude-Web

90Disallow: /

92User-agent: AmazonAdBot

93Allow: /

95User-agent: ozone

96Allow: /

98User-agent: Google-Extended

99Allow: /

What do the bots actually get?

This page reads robots.txt, which states what express.co.uk 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 express.co.uk Test a path in the robots.txt tester

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does express.co.uk block GPTBot?

Yes. express.co.uk’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 63: 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 express.co.uk block ClaudeBot?

Yes. express.co.uk’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 84: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does express.co.uk block Google-Extended?

No. express.co.uk’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 express.co.uk block PerplexityBot?

Yes. express.co.uk’s robots.txt disallows PerplexityBot from the whole site (line 72: Disallow: /). PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find express.co.uk?

Not through its own crawler. express.co.uk’s robots.txt disallows OAI-SearchBot from the whole site (line 66: Disallow: /). OAI-SearchBot is the crawler behind ChatGPT search; blocking it keeps the site out of ChatGPT’s search answers. Checked 9 November 2026.