Who blocks AI · #396 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does jstor.org block AI crawlers?

Yes. jstor.org’s robots.txt blocks 4 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and CCBot. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: www.jstor.org/robots.txt · 66 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	Partly blocked	line 4 · `Disallow: /action` line 5 · `Disallow: /api` and 16 more
`Bingbot`	Microsoft	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DuckDuckBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Applebot`	Apple	Partly blocked	line 4 · `Disallow: /action` line 5 · `Disallow: /api` and 16 more
`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 65 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 65 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 65 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 65 · `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 www.jstor.org/robots.txt · 66 lines

1Sitemap: https://www.jstor.org/sitemap.xml

3User-agent: Googlebot

4Disallow: /action

5Disallow: /api

6Disallow: /citation

7Disallow: /clockss-manifest

8Disallow: /doi/abs

9Disallow: /feedback

10Disallow: /purchase

11Disallow: /register/

12Disallow: /stable/full

13Disallow: /stable/suppl

14Disallow: /stable/view

15Disallow: /start-session

16Disallow: /stoken

17Disallow: /tc/accept

18Disallow: /token

19Disallow: /topic

20Disallow: /ui_log

21Disallow: /userimages

22Allow: /action/showLogin

23Allow: /action/showJournal

24Allow: /action/showPublication

25Allow: /action/showSubscriptionJournalsAsXml

26Allow: /action/showXml

27Allow: /doi/xml

29User-agent: *

30Disallow: /action

31Disallow: /api

32Disallow: /citation

33Disallow: /clockss-manifest

34Disallow: /doi/abs

35Disallow: /doi/xml

36Disallow: /feedback

37Disallow: /purchase

38Disallow: /register/

39Disallow: /stable/full

40Disallow: /stable/suppl

41Disallow: /stable/view

42Disallow: /start-session

43Disallow: /stoken

44Disallow: /tc/accept

45Disallow: /token

46Disallow: /topic

47Disallow: /ui_log

48Disallow: /userimages

49Allow: /action/showLogin

50Allow: /action/showJournal

51Allow: /action/showPublication

52Allow: /action/showSubscriptionJournalsAsXml

53Allow: /action/showXml

55# Disallow crawling for the purposes of training models

57# https://support.anthropic.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropic-crawl-data-from-the-web-and-how-can-site-owners-block-the-crawler

58User-agent: ClaudeBot

59# https://commoncrawl.org/faq

60User-agent: CCBot

61# https://platform.openai.com/docs/gptbot

62User-agent: GPTBot

63# https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/overview-google-crawlers

64User-agent: Google-Extended

65Disallow: /

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does jstor.org block GPTBot?

Yes. jstor.org’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 65: 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 jstor.org block ClaudeBot?

Yes. jstor.org’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 65: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does jstor.org block Google-Extended?

Yes. jstor.org’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 65: 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 jstor.org block PerplexityBot?

No. jstor.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 jstor.org?

Yes. jstor.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.