Who blocks AI · #1023 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does hindustantimes.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. hindustantimes.com’s robots.txt blocks 1 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including Meta-ExternalAgent. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotAllowed OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotAllowed PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedPartly blocked CCBotAllowed

robots.txt: www.hindustantimes.com/robots.txt · 97 lines
llms.txt: found
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	Partly blocked	line 5 · `Disallow: /what-now/card-details/` line 6 · `Disallow: //url` and 31 more
`Bingbot`	Microsoft	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DuckDuckBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Applebot`	Apple	Partly blocked	line 5 · `Disallow: /what-now/card-details/` line 6 · `Disallow: //url` and 31 more
`PetalBot`	Huawei	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`YandexBot`	Yandex	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Baiduspider`	Baidu	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

AI search

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`OAI-SearchBot`	OpenAI	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`YouBot`	You.com	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Partly blocked	line 5 · `Disallow: /what-now/card-details/` line 6 · `Disallow: //url` and 31 more
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Blocked	line 89 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: meta-externalagent`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Claude-User`	Anthropic	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Perplexity-User`	Perplexity	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`MistralAI-User`	Mistral	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Meta-ExternalFetcher`	Meta	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

SEO tools

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`AhrefsBot`	Ahrefs	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`SemrushBot`	Semrush	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`MJ12bot`	Majestic	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DotBot`	Moz	Allowed	line 4 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

View www.hindustantimes.com/robots.txt · 97 lines

1User-agent: *

2User-agent: Googlebot

3User-agent: Google-Extended

4Allow: /

5Disallow: /what-now/card-details/

6Disallow: /*/url*

7Disallow: /*/imageURL

8Disallow: /fragment/

9Disallow: /Fragment/

10Disallow: /Error/

11Disallow: /error/

12Disallow: /login/

13Disallow: /intfeeds/

14Disallow: /Images/HTEditImages

15Disallow: /images/HTPopups/

16Disallow: /Images/Popup/

17Disallow: /homenew

18Disallow: /dummytestpage/

19Disallow: /brand-stories/international/*

20Disallow: /origin-pre-prod/

21Disallow: /sponsored-stories/

22Disallow: /brand-stories/

23Disallow: /brand-post/

24Disallow: /cdp/api*

25Disallow: /cdp/user*

26Disallow: /sponsored-post/

27Disallow: /hot-amazon-deals*

28Disallow: /s/*

29Disallow: /static-content/1y*

30Disallow: /static_content/1y*

31Disallow: /static-content/10s*

32Disallow: /my-ht/*

33Disallow: /games/trivia*

34Disallow: /trivia/*

35Disallow: /author/*/page-*

36Disallow: /topic/*/page-*

37Disallow: /feed-elections/*

40User-agent: Googlebot-News

41Allow: /

42Disallow: /what-now/card-details/

43Disallow: /*/url*

44Disallow: /*/imageURL

45Disallow: /fragment/

46Disallow: /Fragment/

47Disallow: /Error/

48Disallow: /error/

49Disallow: /login/

50Disallow: /intfeeds/

51Disallow: /Images/HTEditImages

52Disallow: /images/HTPopups/

53Disallow: /Images/Popup/

54Disallow: /homenew

55Disallow: /dummytestpage/

56Disallow: /brand-stories/international/*

57Disallow: /origin-pre-prod/

58Disallow: /sponsored-stories/

59Disallow: /brand-stories/

60Disallow: /brand-post/

61Disallow: /cdp/api*

62Disallow: /cdp/user*

63Disallow: /sponsored-post/

64Disallow: /hot-amazon-deals*

65Disallow: /s/*

66Disallow: /static-content/1y*

67Disallow: /static_content/1y*

68Disallow: /static-content/10s*

69Disallow: /my-ht/*

70Disallow: /games/trivia*

71Disallow: /trivia/*

72Disallow: /author/*/page-*

73Disallow: /topic/*/page-*

74Disallow: /feed-elections/*

77User-agent: facebookexternalhit

78User-agent: Facebot

79Allow: /s/

81User-agent: AmazonAdBot

82User-agent: AdsBot-Google

83User-agent: Mediapartners-Google

84Allow: /

85Allow: /trivia/

87User-agent: meta-webindexer

88User-agent: meta-externalagent

89Disallow: /

91Sitemap: https://www.hindustantimes.com/sitemap/news.xml

92Sitemap: https://www.hindustantimes.com/sitemap/index.xml

93Sitemap: https://www.hindustantimes.com/sitemap/liveblog.xml

94Sitemap: https://www.hindustantimes.com/sitemap/section.xml

95Sitemap: https://www.hindustantimes.com/sitemap/education-static.xml

96Sitemap: https://www.hindustantimes.com/telugu/sitemap/news.xml

97Sitemap: https://www.hindustantimes.com/bangla/sitemap/news.xml

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.
26 October 2026: started blocking Meta-ExternalAgent.

Questions

Does hindustantimes.com block GPTBot?

No. hindustantimes.com’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 hindustantimes.com block ClaudeBot?

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

Does hindustantimes.com block Google-Extended?

Partly. hindustantimes.com’s robots.txt keeps Google-Extended out of some paths, such as /what-now/card-details/, and lets it crawl the rest. 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 hindustantimes.com block PerplexityBot?

No. hindustantimes.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 hindustantimes.com?

Yes. hindustantimes.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.