Who blocks AI · #119 in the Majestic Million
robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026
Does gnu.org block AI crawlers?
No. gnu.org’s robots.txt lets all 19 AI crawlers we track crawl the site. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.
GPTBotAllowedOAI-SearchBotAllowedClaudeBotAllowedPerplexityBotAllowedGoogle-ExtendedAllowedCCBotAllowed- robots.txt
- www.gnu.org/robots.txt · 147 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 | 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 | Allowed | no rule matches the home page |
ClaudeBot | Anthropic | Allowed | no rule matches the home page |
Google-Extended | Allowed | no rule matches the home page | |
CCBot | Common Crawl | Allowed | no rule matches the home page |
Applebot-Extended | Apple | Allowed | no rule matches the home page |
GoogleOther | 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 59 · Disallow: / under User-agent: AhrefsBot |
SemrushBot | Semrush | Blocked | line 88 · Disallow: / under User-agent: SemrushBot |
MJ12bot | Majestic | Allowed | no rule matches the home page |
DotBot | Moz | Blocked | line 80 · Disallow: / under User-agent: DotBot |
View www.gnu.org/robots.txt · 147 lines
1# robots.txt for http://www.gnu.org/
2
3User-agent: *
4Crawl-delay: 4
5Disallow: */CVS/
6Disallow: */po/
7Disallow: */workshop/
8Disallow: /cgi-bin/
9Disallow: /copyleft/
10Disallow: /gnu.css
11Disallow: /gnusearch/
12Disallow: /norobotsnorhumansshouldevervisithispage/
13Disallow: /prep/gnumaint/
14Disallow: /prep/wrappers-and-scripts/
15Disallow: /private/
16Disallow: /rss/
17Disallow: /savannah-checkouts/
18Disallow: /screenshots/
19Disallow: /server/banners/
20Disallow: /server/body-include*
21Disallow: /server/bottom-notes*
22Disallow: /server/footer*
23Disallow: /server/fs-gang*
24Disallow: /server/generic*
25Disallow: /server/gnun/
26Disallow: /server/head-include*
27Disallow: /server/header*
28Disallow: /server/html5-head-include*
29Disallow: /server/html5-header*
30Disallow: /server/include-file-list*
31Disallow: /server/outdated*
32Disallow: /server/select-language.html
33Disallow: /server/source/
34Disallow: /server/staging/
35Disallow: /server/top-addendum*
36Disallow: /server/trans-map.html
37Disallow: /server/whatsnew_translations.xml
38Disallow: /software/gnun/linc/
39Disallow: /software/gnun/proofread/
40Disallow: /software/gnun/reports/
41Disallow: /software/gnun/test/
42Disallow: /usenet/
43Sitemap: http://www.gnu.org/sitemap.xml
44
45# Majestic - SEO
46User-agent: MJ12bot
47Disallow: /
48
49# DataForSeo - SEO
50User-agent: DataForSeoBot
51Disallow: /
52
53# webmeup - SEO
54User-agent: BLEXBot
55Disallow: /
56
57# Ahrefs - SEO
58User-agent: AhrefsBot
59Disallow: /
60
61# babbar - SEO
62User-agent: barkrowler
63Disallow: /
64
65# Screamingfrog - SEO
66User-agent: Screaming Frog SEO Spider
67Disallow: /
68
69# Seozoom - SEO
70User-Agent: ZoomBot
71Disallow: /
72
73# Brandwatch - SEO
74User-agent: magpie-crawler
75Disallow: /
76
77# Begin Moz - SEO
78# Not to be confused with Mozilla.
79User-agent: DotBot
80Disallow: /
81
82User-agent: rogerbot
83Disallow: /
84# End Moz - SEO
85
86# Begin Semrush - SEO
87User-agent: SemrushBot
88Disallow: /
89
90User-agent: SiteAuditBot
91Disallow: /
92
93User-agent: SemrushBot-BA
94Disallow: /
95
96User-agent: SemrushBot-SI
97Disallow: /
98
99User-agent: SemrushBot-SWA
100Disallow: /
101
102User-agent: SplitSignalBot
103Disallow: /
104
105User-agent: SemrushBot-OCOB
106Disallow: /
107# End Semrush - SEO
108
109# cognitiveSEO - SEO
110User-agent: JamesBOT
111Disallow: /
112
113# oncrawl - SEO
114User-agent: Oncrawl
115Disallow: /
116
117# BEGIN Awario - Marketing
118User-agent: AwarioRssBot
119Disallow: /
120
121User-agent: AwarioSmartBot
122Disallow: /
123
124User-agent: AwarioBot
125Disallow: /
126# END Awario - Marketing
127
128# SERPSTAT - SEO
129User-agent: serpstatbot
130Disallow: /
131
132# website-datenbank.de - Search engine?
133User-agent: netEstate NE Crawler
134Disallow: /
135
136# Ignores crawl-delay and does not help us.
137User-Agent: panscient.com
138Disallow: /
139
140# Aggressive Latvian Academic Integrity bot that does not help us.
141User-agent: AcademicBotRTU
142Disallow: /
143
144# See RT #1298215 about internationalization and localization abuse.
145# See RT #1638325 about localization, Savannah, and more.
146# See RT #2171216 about redirections and unused files.
147
What do the bots actually get?
This page reads robots.txt, which states what gnu.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 gnu.org Test a path in the robots.txt tester
History
- 19 October 2026: first checked.
Questions
Does gnu.org block GPTBot?
No. gnu.org’s robots.txt lets GPTBot crawl the site. GPTBot is OpenAI’s crawler for training data; blocking it doesn’t affect ChatGPT search, which uses OAI-SearchBot. Checked 9 November 2026.
Does gnu.org block ClaudeBot?
No. gnu.org’s robots.txt lets ClaudeBot crawl the site. ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.
Does gnu.org block Google-Extended?
No. gnu.org’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 gnu.org block PerplexityBot?
No. gnu.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 gnu.org?
Yes. gnu.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.