Who blocks AI · #1266 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does govinfo.gov block AI crawlers?

No. govinfo.gov’s robots.txt lets all 19 AI crawlers we track crawl the site. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotAllowed OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotAllowed PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedAllowed CCBotAllowed

robots.txt: www.govinfo.gov/robots.txt · 119 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	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Google-Extended`	Google	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`	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	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.govinfo.gov/robots.txt · 119 lines

2# robots.txt

4User-agent: *

5# CSS, JS, Images

6Allow: /core/*.css$

7Allow: /core/*.css?

8Allow: /core/*.js$

9Allow: /core/*.js?

10Allow: /core/*.gif

11Allow: /core/*.jpg

12Allow: /core/*.jpeg

13Allow: /core/*.png

14Allow: /core/*.svg

15Allow: /profiles/*.css$

16Allow: /profiles/*.css?

17Allow: /profiles/*.js$

18Allow: /profiles/*.js?

19Allow: /profiles/*.gif

20Allow: /profiles/*.jpg

21Allow: /profiles/*.jpeg

22Allow: /profiles/*.png

23Allow: /profiles/*.svg

24# Directories

25Disallow: /core/

26Disallow: /profiles/

27# Files

28Disallow: /README.md

29Disallow: /composer/Metapackage/README.txt

30Disallow: /composer/Plugin/ProjectMessage/README.md

31Disallow: /composer/Plugin/Scaffold/README.md

32Disallow: /composer/Plugin/VendorHardening/README.txt

33Disallow: /composer/Template/README.txt

34Disallow: /modules/README.txt

35Disallow: /sites/README.txt

36Disallow: /themes/README.txt

37Disallow: /web.config

38# Paths (clean URLs)

39Disallow: /admin/

40Disallow: /comment/reply/

41Disallow: /filter/tips

42Disallow: /node/add/

43Disallow: /search/

44Disallow: /user/register

45Disallow: /user/password

46Disallow: /user/login

47Disallow: /user/logout

48Disallow: /media/oembed

49Disallow: /*/media/oembed

50# Paths (no clean URLs)

51Disallow: /index.php/admin/

52Disallow: /index.php/comment/reply/

53Disallow: /index.php/filter/tips

54Disallow: /index.php/node/add/

55Disallow: /index.php/search/

56Disallow: /index.php/user/password

57Disallow: /index.php/user/register

58Disallow: /index.php/user/login

59Disallow: /index.php/user/logout

60Disallow: /index.php/media/oembed

61Disallow: /index.php/*/media/oembed

63Disallow: /app/search/*

65Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/sitemap.xml

66Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/BILLS_sitemap_index.xml

67Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/BUDGET_sitemap_index.xml

68Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CCAL_sitemap_index.xml

69Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CDIR_sitemap_index.xml

70Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CDOC_sitemap_index.xml

71Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CFR_sitemap_index.xml

72Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CHRG_sitemap_index.xml

73Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CMR_sitemap_index.xml

74Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/COMPS_sitemap_index.xml

75Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CPRT_sitemap_index.xml

76Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CRECB_sitemap_index.xml

77Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CREC_sitemap_index.xml

78Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CRI_sitemap_index.xml

79Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CRPT_sitemap_index.xml

80Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/CZIC_sitemap_index.xml

81Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/DCPD_sitemap_index.xml

82Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/ECONI_sitemap_index.xml

83Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/ERIC_sitemap_index.xml

84Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/ERP_sitemap_index.xml

85Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/FR_sitemap_index.xml

86Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/GAOREPORTS_sitemap_index.xml

87Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/GOVMAN_sitemap_index.xml

88Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/GOVPUB_sitemap_index.xml

89Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/GPO_sitemap_index.xml

90Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/HJOURNAL_sitemap_index.xml

91Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/HMAN_sitemap_index.xml

92Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/HOB_sitemap_index.xml

93Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/LSA_sitemap_index.xml

94Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/PAI_sitemap_index.xml

95Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/PLAW_sitemap_index.xml

96Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/PPP_sitemap_index.xml

97Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/SERIALSET_sitemap_index.xml

98Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/SMAN_sitemap_index.xml

99Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/STATUTE_sitemap_index.xml

100Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/USCODE_sitemap_index.xml

101Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/USCOURTS_sitemap_index.xml

102Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/USREPORTS_sitemap_index.xml

103Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/WCPD_sitemap_index.xml

104

105# Bulkdata sitemaps

106Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/BILLSTATUS/sitemapindex.xml

107Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/BILLSUM/sitemapindex.xml

108Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/BILLS/sitemapindex.xml

109Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/CBD/sitemapindex.xml

110Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/CFR/sitemapindex.xml

111Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/ECFR/sitemapindex.xml

112Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/FR/sitemapindex.xml

113Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/GOVMAN/sitemapindex.xml

114Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/HMAN/sitemapindex.xml

115Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/PAI/sitemapindex.xml

116Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/PPP/sitemapindex.xml

117Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/PLAW/sitemapindex.xml

118Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/SCD/sitemapindex.xml

119Sitemap: https://www.govinfo.gov/sitemap/bulkdata/STATUTE/sitemapindex.xml

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does govinfo.gov block GPTBot?

No. govinfo.gov’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 govinfo.gov block ClaudeBot?

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

Does govinfo.gov block Google-Extended?

No. govinfo.gov’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 govinfo.gov block PerplexityBot?

No. govinfo.gov’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 govinfo.gov?

Yes. govinfo.gov’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.