Who blocks AI · #517 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does justice.gov block AI crawlers?

Yes. justice.gov’s robots.txt blocks 5 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, Perplexity-User and 2 more. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotAllowed OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotAllowed PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedAllowed CCBotAllowed

robots.txt: justice.gov/robots.txt · 80 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	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Bingbot`	Microsoft	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DuckDuckBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Applebot`	Apple	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`PetalBot`	Huawei	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`YandexBot`	Yandex	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Baiduspider`	Baidu	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

AI search

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`OAI-SearchBot`	OpenAI	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`YouBot`	You.com	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 48 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ChatGPT-User`
`Claude-User`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 45 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Claude-User`
`Perplexity-User`	Perplexity	Blocked	line 36 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Perplexity-User`
`MistralAI-User`	Mistral	Blocked	line 58 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: MistralAI-User`
`Meta-ExternalFetcher`	Meta	Blocked	line 67 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: meta-externalfetcher`

SEO tools

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`AhrefsBot`	Ahrefs	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`SemrushBot`	Semrush	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`MJ12bot`	Majestic	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DotBot`	Moz	Allowed	line 32 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: *`

View justice.gov/robots.txt · 80 lines

1# As a condition of accessing this website, you agree to abide by the following

2# content signals:

4# (a) If a Content-Signal = yes, you may collect content for the corresponding

5# use.

6# (b) If a Content-Signal = no, you may not collect content for the

7# corresponding use.

8# (c) If the website operator does not include a Content-Signal for a

9# corresponding use, the website operator neither grants nor restricts

10# permission via Content-Signal with respect to the corresponding use.

12# The content signals and their meanings are:

14# search: building a search index and providing search results (e.g., returning

15# hyperlinks and short excerpts from your website's contents). Search does not

16# include providing AI-generated search summaries.

17# ai-input: inputting content into one or more AI models (e.g., retrieval

18# augmented generation, grounding, or other real-time taking of content for

19# generative AI search answers).

20# ai-train: training or fine-tuning AI models.

21# use: how AI systems may consume the content (immediate, reference, or full).

23# ANY RESTRICTIONS EXPRESSED VIA CONTENT SIGNALS ARE EXPRESS RESERVATIONS OF

24# RIGHTS UNDER ARTICLE 4 OF THE EUROPEAN UNION DIRECTIVE 2019/790 ON COPYRIGHT

25# AND RELATED RIGHTS IN THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET.

27# BEGIN Cloudflare Managed content

30User-agent: *

31Content-Signal: search=yes,ai-train=yes,use=reference

32Allow: /

34# AI Agents

35User-agent: Perplexity-User

36Disallow: /

38User-agent: FireCrawl

39Disallow: /

41User-agent: FirecrawlAgent

42Disallow: /

44User-agent: Claude-User

45Disallow: /

47User-agent: ChatGPT-User

48Disallow: /

50User-agent: Google-Agent

51Disallow: /

53User-agent: Google-GeminiNotebook

54User-agent: Google-NotebookLM

55Disallow: /

57User-agent: MistralAI-User

58Disallow: /

60User-agent: Kimi-User

61Disallow: /

63User-agent: Amzn-User

64Disallow: /

66User-agent: meta-externalfetcher

67Disallow: /

69User-agent: Retool

70Disallow: /

72User-agent: Instapaper

73Disallow: /

75User-agent: ChathiveCrawler

76Disallow: /

78# END Cloudflare Managed Content

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.
9 November 2026: started blocking ChatGPT-User; started blocking Claude-User; started blocking Perplexity-User; started blocking MistralAI-User; started blocking Meta-ExternalFetcher.

Questions

Does justice.gov block GPTBot?

No. justice.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 justice.gov block ClaudeBot?

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

Does justice.gov block Google-Extended?

No. justice.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 justice.gov block PerplexityBot?

No. justice.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 justice.gov?

Yes. justice.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.