Who blocks AI · #432 in the Majestic Million
robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026
Does irs.gov block AI crawlers?
No. irs.gov’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.irs.gov/robots.txt · 122 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 | 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.irs.gov/robots.txt · 122 lines
1#
2# robots.txt
3#
4# This file is to prevent the crawling and indexing of certain parts
5# of your site by web crawlers and spiders run by sites like Yahoo!
6# and Google. By telling these "robots" where not to go on your site,
7# you save bandwidth and server resources.
8#
9# This file will be ignored unless it is at the root of your host:
10# Used: http://example.com/robots.txt
11# Ignored: http://example.com/site/robots.txt
12#
13# For more information about the robots.txt standard, see:
14# http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html
15Sitemap: https://www.irs.gov/sitemap.xml
16
17User-agent: *
18# CSS, JS, Images
19Allow: /core/*.css$
20Allow: /core/*.css?
21Allow: /core/*.js$
22Allow: /core/*.js?
23Allow: /core/*.gif
24Allow: /core/*.jpg
25Allow: /core/*.jpeg
26Allow: /core/*.png
27Allow: /core/*.svg
28Allow: /profiles/*.css$
29Allow: /profiles/*.css?
30Allow: /profiles/*.js$
31Allow: /profiles/*.js?
32Allow: /profiles/*.gif
33Allow: /profiles/*.jpg
34Allow: /profiles/*.jpeg
35Allow: /profiles/*.png
36Allow: /profiles/*.svg
37# Directories
38Disallow: /core/
39Disallow: /profiles/
40# Files
41Disallow: /README.txt
42Disallow: /web.config
43# Paths (clean URLs)
44Disallow: /admin/
45Disallow: /comment/reply/
46Disallow: /filter/tips
47Disallow: /node/add/
48Disallow: /search/
49Disallow: /*search=*
50Disallow: /user/register/
51Disallow: /user/password/
52Disallow: /user/login/
53Disallow: /user/logout/
54Disallow: /zh-hans/node/
55Disallow: /zh-hant/node/
56Disallow: /es/node/
57Disallow: /vi/node/
58Disallow: /ht/node/
59Disallow: /ru/node/
60Disallow: /ko/node/
61Disallow: /site-index-search
62Disallow: /*/site-index-search
63Disallow: /omnibar-search-results-json-v2
64Disallow: /*/omnibar-search-results-json-v2
65Disallow: /forms-pubs-search
66Disallow: /*/forms-pubs-search
67Disallow: /ita-index-search
68Disallow: /*/ita-index-search
69Disallow: /newsroom-index-search
70Disallow: /*/newsroom-index-search
71Disallow: /notices-index-search
72Disallow: /*/notices-index-search
73Disallow: /faq-index-search
74Disallow: /*/faq-index-search
75Disallow: /statistics-index-search
76Disallow: /*/statistics-index-search
77Disallow: /forms-pubs-accessible-search
78Disallow: /*/forms-pubs-accessible-search
79Disallow: /efile-index-taxpros-search
80Disallow: /*/efile-index-taxpros-search
81Disallow: /forms-pubs-prior-search
82Disallow: /*/forms-pubs-prior-search
83Disallow: /tax-pros-index-search
84Disallow: /*/tax-pros-index-search
85Disallow: /newsroom-index-search
86Disallow: /*/newsroom-index-search
87Disallow: /forms-pubs-all-search
88Disallow: /*/forms-pubs-all-search
89Disallow: /efile-index-taxpayer-search
90Disallow: /*/efile-index-taxpayer-search
91Disallow: /charities-non-profits/tax-exempt-organization-search
92Disallow: /*/charities-non-profits/tax-exempt-organization-search
93Disallow: /*/downloads/
94Disallow: /*/written-determinations
95Disallow: /*/applicable-federal-rates
96Disallow: /*/actions-on-decisions
97Disallow: /*/information-letters
98Disallow: /*/chief-counsel-notices
99Disallow: /*/draft-tax-forms
100Disallow: /*/forms-instructions-and-publications
101Disallow: /*/prior-year-forms-and-instructions
102Disallow: /*/internal-revenue-bulletins
103Disallow: /*/instructions-and-publications-xml-source-files
104# Paths (no clean URLs)
105Disallow: /index.php/zh-hans/node/
106Disallow: /index.php/zh-hant/node/
107Disallow: /index.php/es/node/
108Disallow: /index.php/vi/node/
109Disallow: /index.php/ht/node/
110Disallow: /index.php/ru/node/
111Disallow: /index.php/ko/node/
112Disallow: /index.php/admin/
113Disallow: /index.php/comment/reply/
114Disallow: /index.php/filter/tips
115Disallow: /index.php/node/add/
116Disallow: /index.php/search/
117Disallow: /index.php/user/password/
118Disallow: /index.php/user/register/
119Disallow: /index.php/user/login/
120Disallow: /index.php/user/logout/
121Disallow: /filing/free-file-fillable-forms/free-file-fillable-forms-support
122Disallow: /filing/free-file-fillable-forms/free-file-fillable-forms-support-2
What do the bots actually get?
This page reads robots.txt, which states what irs.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 irs.gov Test a path in the robots.txt tester
History
- 19 October 2026: first checked.
Questions
Does irs.gov block GPTBot?
No. irs.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 irs.gov block ClaudeBot?
No. irs.gov’s robots.txt lets ClaudeBot crawl the site. ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.
Does irs.gov block Google-Extended?
No. irs.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 irs.gov block PerplexityBot?
No. irs.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 irs.gov?
Yes. irs.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.