Who blocks AI · #611 in the Majestic Million
robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026
Does scmp.com block AI crawlers?
No. scmp.com’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.scmp.com/robots.txt · 169 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.scmp.com/robots.txt · 169 lines
1# robots.txt
2# This file is to prevent the crawling and indexing of certain parts
3# of your site by web crawlers and spiders run by sites like Yahoo!
4# and Google. By telling these "robots" where not to go on your site,
5# you save bandwidth and server resources.
6# This file will be ignored unless it is at the root of your host:
7# Used: http://example.com/robots.txt
8# Ignored: http://example.com/site/robots.txt
9# For more information about the robots.txt standard, see:
10# http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html
11# For syntax checking, see:
12# http://www.sxw.org.uk/computing/robots/check.html
13
14# AmazonAdBot
15User-agent: AmazonAdBot
16Allow: /
17
18# NewsNow
19User-agent: NewsNow
20Allow: /print/
21Allow: /?q=print/
22
23# GrapeShot
24User-agent: grapeshot
25Allow: /*/article/*$
26
27# Facebook
28User-agent: facebookexternalhit
29Allow: /
30
31User-agent: *
32Crawl-delay: 10
33
34# Ads
35Disallow: /*?*campaign=*
36Disallow: /*?*cid=*
37Disallow: /*?*nochartbeat=*
38Disallow: /*?*noga=*
39Disallow: /*?*nograpeshot=*
40Disallow: /*?*nogtm=*
41Disallow: /*?*noixwrapper=*
42Disallow: /*?*nomoat=*
43Disallow: /*?*nomoatyi=*
44Disallow: /*?*showonlyads=*
45
46# Bot score and country
47Disallow: /navigator-info
48
49# Path
50Disallow: /.well-known/*
51Disallow: /*/firebase-messaging-sw.js
52Disallow: /google97d8d43559c9b155.html
53Disallow: /healthz
54Disallow: /login
55Disallow: /login/facebook
56Disallow: /login/facebook/*
57Disallow: /logout
58Disallow: /register
59Disallow: /signin
60Disallow: /styleguide/*
61
62# Directories
63Disallow: /includes/
64Disallow: /misc/
65Disallow: /modules/
66Disallow: /profiles/
67Disallow: /public/
68Disallow: /scripts/
69Disallow: /static/
70Disallow: /themes/
71
72# Files
73Disallow: /_next/data/*.json
74Disallow: /CHANGELOG.txt
75Disallow: /cron.php
76Disallow: /INSTALL.mysql.txt
77Disallow: /INSTALL.pgsql.txt
78Disallow: /install.php
79Disallow: /INSTALL.sqlite.txt
80Disallow: /INSTALL.txt
81Disallow: /LICENSE.txt
82Disallow: /MAINTAINERS.txt
83Disallow: /sites/default/files/*.doc
84Disallow: /sites/default/files/*.docx
85Disallow: /sites/default/files/*.pdf
86Disallow: /sites/default/files/*.swf
87Disallow: /sites/default/files/styles/*.jpg
88Disallow: /update.php
89Disallow: /UPGRADE.txt
90Disallow: /xmlrpc.php
91
92# Paths (clean URLs)
93Disallow: *?destination=*
94Disallow: *Article_type=*
95Disallow: *field_article*
96Disallow: /admin/
97Disallow: /ajax
98Disallow: /ajax_comments/
99Disallow: /ajax/*
100Disallow: /comment/reply/
101Disallow: /epaper
102Disallow: /epaper/*
103Disallow: /facebook-instant-articles/feed/*
104Disallow: /filter/tips/
105Disallow: /label/
106Disallow: /node/*/edit
107Disallow: /node/*/nodequeue
108Disallow: /node/add/
109Disallow: /scmp_comments/
110Disallow: /story/style/*
111Disallow: /user/login/
112Disallow: /user/logout/
113Disallow: /user/password/
114Disallow: /user/register/
115
116# Paths (no clean URLs)
117Disallow: /?q=admin/
118Disallow: /?q=comment/reply/
119Disallow: /?q=epaper
120Disallow: /?q=epaper/*
121Disallow: /?q=facebook-instant-articles/feed/*
122Disallow: /?q=filter/tips/
123Disallow: /?q=node/*/edit
124Disallow: /?q=node/*/nodequeue
125Disallow: /?q=node/add/
126Disallow: /?q=print/
127Disallow: /?q=user/login/
128Disallow: /?q=user/logout/
129Disallow: /?q=user/password/
130Disallow: /?q=user/register/
131Disallow: /*/antiSpam$
132Disallow: /*/beaconBase$
133Disallow: /*/beforeUnload$
134Disallow: /*/client$
135Disallow: /*/compose$
136Disallow: /*/cookie$
137Disallow: /*/etag$
138Disallow: /*/goldlog$
139Disallow: /*/iframe$
140Disallow: /*/initLoad$
141Disallow: /*/lib_b/*$
142Disallow: /*/log$
143Disallow: /*/logSend$
144Disallow: /*/makeid$
145Disallow: /*/metaInfo$
146Disallow: /*/misc$
147Disallow: /*/nameStorage$
148Disallow: /*/personality/index$
149Disallow: /*/pvData$
150Disallow: /*/pvid$
151Disallow: /*/referrer$
152Disallow: /*/sendpv$
153Disallow: /*/spm$
154Disallow: /*/spmact$
155Disallow: /*/spmException$
156Disallow: /*/spmMonitor$
157Disallow: /*/util$
158Disallow: /*/windvane$
159
160# Sitemap
161Sitemap: https://www.scmp.com/sitemap/sitemap.xml
162Sitemap: https://www.scmp.com/sitemap/archives-0.xml
163
164# Temp removal
165Disallow: /presented/better-life/career-education/topics/edtalk-harbour-school/article/3199785/rethinking-5-educational-myths-through-experiential-learning-approach
166Disallow: /print/presented/better-life/career-education/topics/edtalk-harbour-school/article/3199785/rethinking-5-educational-myths-through-experiential-learning-approach
167Disallow: /native/business/banking-finance/topics/wealth-across-borders/article/3357488/retired-businessman-and-lifelong-sailor-trust-anchors-process-building-wealth
168Disallow: /print/native/business/banking-finance/topics/wealth-across-borders/article/3357488/retired-businessman-and-lifelong-sailor-trust-anchors-process-building-wealth
169
What do the bots actually get?
This page reads robots.txt, which states what scmp.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 scmp.com Test a path in the robots.txt tester
History
- 19 October 2026: first checked.
Questions
Does scmp.com block GPTBot?
No. scmp.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 scmp.com block ClaudeBot?
No. scmp.com’s robots.txt lets ClaudeBot crawl the site. ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.
Does scmp.com block Google-Extended?
No. scmp.com’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 scmp.com block PerplexityBot?
No. scmp.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 scmp.com?
Yes. scmp.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.