Who blocks AI · #1037 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does gamespot.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. gamespot.com’s robots.txt blocks 9 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and 6 more. It also blocks PetalBot and Baiduspider among search engines.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: gamespot.com/robots.txt · 131 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	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Bingbot`	Microsoft	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DuckDuckBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Applebot`	Apple	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`PetalBot`	Huawei	Blocked	line 84 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: PetalBot`
`YandexBot`	Yandex	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Baiduspider`	Baidu	Blocked	line 81 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Baiduspider`

AI search

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`OAI-SearchBot`	OpenAI	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Blocked	line 36 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Amazonbot`
`YouBot`	You.com	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 48 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 54 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 45 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 39 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Blocked	line 78 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GoogleOther`
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Blocked	line 75 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: meta-externalagent`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 42 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Bytespider`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Claude-User`	Anthropic	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Perplexity-User`	Perplexity	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`MistralAI-User`	Mistral	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Meta-ExternalFetcher`	Meta	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

SEO tools

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`AhrefsBot`	Ahrefs	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`SemrushBot`	Semrush	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`MJ12bot`	Majestic	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DotBot`	Moz	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

View gamespot.com/robots.txt · 131 lines

1# As a condition of accessing this website, you agree to abide by the following

2# content signals:

4# (a) If a Content-Signal = yes, you may collect content for the corresponding

5# use.

6# (b) If a Content-Signal = no, you may not collect content for the

7# corresponding use.

8# (c) If the website operator does not include a Content-Signal for a

9# corresponding use, the website operator neither grants nor restricts

10# permission via Content-Signal with respect to the corresponding use.

12# The content signals and their meanings are:

14# search: building a search index and providing search results (e.g., returning

15# hyperlinks and short excerpts from your website's contents). Search does not

16# include providing AI-generated search summaries.

17# ai-input: inputting content into one or more AI models (e.g., retrieval

18# augmented generation, grounding, or other real-time taking of content for

19# generative AI search answers).

20# ai-train: training or fine-tuning AI models.

21# use: how AI systems may consume the content (immediate, reference, or full).

23# ANY RESTRICTIONS EXPRESSED VIA CONTENT SIGNALS ARE EXPRESS RESERVATIONS OF

24# RIGHTS UNDER ARTICLE 4 OF THE EUROPEAN UNION DIRECTIVE 2019/790 ON COPYRIGHT

25# AND RELATED RIGHTS IN THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET.

27# BEGIN Cloudflare Managed content

30User-agent: *

31Content-Signal: search=yes,ai-train=no,use=reference

32Allow: /

34# Training crawlers

35User-agent: Amazonbot

36Disallow: /

38User-agent: Applebot-Extended

39Disallow: /

41User-agent: Bytespider

42Disallow: /

44User-agent: CCBot

45Disallow: /

47User-agent: ClaudeBot

48Disallow: /

50User-agent: Diffbot

51Disallow: /

53User-agent: Google-Extended

54Disallow: /

56User-agent: GPTBot

57Disallow: /

59User-agent: omgili

60Disallow: /

62User-agent: anthropic-ai

63Disallow: /

65User-agent: Claude-Web

66Disallow: /

68User-agent: cohere-ai

69Disallow: /

71User-agent: MistralAI-Training

72Disallow: /

74User-agent: meta-externalagent

75Disallow: /

77User-agent: GoogleOther

78Disallow: /

80User-agent: Baiduspider

81Disallow: /

83User-agent: PetalBot

84Disallow: /

86User-agent: AwarioSmartBot

87User-agent: AwarioRssBot

88Disallow: /

90User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot

91Disallow: /

93User-agent: QualifiedBot

94Disallow: /

96User-agent: Cotoyogi

97Disallow: /

99User-agent: ICC-Crawler

100Disallow: /

101

102User-agent: atlassian-bot

103Disallow: /

104

105User-agent: FishBot

106Disallow: /

107

108User-agent: BorderxBot

109Disallow: /

110

111User-agent: NavuBot

112Disallow: /

113

114User-agent: SemrushBot-SWA

115Disallow: /

116

117User-agent: WARDBot

118Disallow: /

119

120User-agent: magpie-crawler

121Disallow: /

122

123User-agent: KimiBot

124Disallow: /

125

126User-agent: CitibotSiteCrawler

127Disallow: /

128

129# END Cloudflare Managed Content

130

131

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked, robots.txt couldn’t be read.
2 November 2026: robots.txt readable again.

Questions

Does gamespot.com block GPTBot?

Yes. gamespot.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 57: 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 gamespot.com block ClaudeBot?

Yes. gamespot.com’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 48: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does gamespot.com block Google-Extended?

Yes. gamespot.com’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 54: 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 gamespot.com block PerplexityBot?

No. gamespot.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 gamespot.com?

Yes. gamespot.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.