Who blocks AI · #261 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does hbr.org block AI crawlers?

Yes. hbr.org’s robots.txt blocks 3 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, Google-Extended and CCBot. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotAllowed PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: hbr.org/robots.txt · 38 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	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 38 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 36 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`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 hbr.org/robots.txt · 38 lines

1User-Agent: *

2Disallow: /resources/

3Allow: /resources/js

4Allow: /resources/css

5Allow: /resources/images/

6Allow: /resources/xml/sitemaps/

7Disallow: /fastanswers

8Disallow: /my-library*

9Disallow: /email-colleague/

10Disallow: /add-to-cart/

11Disallow: /login*

12Disallow: /shopping-cart/

13Disallow: /shipping-payment

14Disallow: /review-order

15Disallow: /order/thank-you/

16Disallow: /content/ipad/

17Disallow: /newsletters*

18Disallow: /product/recommended*

19Disallow: /webinar-assessment

20Disallow: /search*

21Disallow: /academic-subscriptions

22Disallow: /alumni-subscriptions

23Allow: /resources/html/infographics/2018/ceo-activism-desktop/index.html

24Disallow: /resources/html/error/404.html

25Disallow: /sponsored/2022/10/disruptors-who-are-changing-their-industries

26Disallow: /api/recaptcha/enabled

27Disallow: /register?*

28Disallow: /resources/css/webscripts.css

29User-Agent: 008

30Disallow: /

31User-Agent: FeedBurner/1.0

32Allow: /resources/xml/

33User-agent: GPTBot

34Disallow: /

35User-agent: CCBot

36Disallow: /

37User-agent: Google-Extended

38Disallow: /

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does hbr.org block GPTBot?

Yes. hbr.org’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 34: 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 hbr.org block ClaudeBot?

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

Does hbr.org block Google-Extended?

Yes. hbr.org’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 38: 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 hbr.org block PerplexityBot?

No. hbr.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 hbr.org?

Yes. hbr.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.