Who blocks AI · #327 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does sohu.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. sohu.com’s robots.txt blocks 18 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and 15 more. It also blocks DuckDuckBot, Applebot and 2 more among search engines.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotBlocked ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotBlocked Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: www.sohu.com/robots.txt · 166 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 47 · `Disallow: /?`
`Bingbot`	Microsoft	Partly blocked	line 47 · `Disallow: /?`
`DuckDuckBot`	DuckDuckGo	Blocked	line 165 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Applebot`	Apple	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot`
`PetalBot`	Huawei	Blocked	line 165 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`YandexBot`	Yandex	Blocked	line 165 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Baiduspider`	Baidu	Partly blocked	line 47 · `Disallow: /?`

AI search

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`OAI-SearchBot`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: OAI-SearchBot`
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: PerplexityBot`
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Claude-SearchBot`
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: DuckAssistBot`
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Amazonbot`
`YouBot`	You.com	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: YouBot`

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Blocked	line 165 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Partly blocked	line 89 · `Disallow: /?`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ChatGPT-User`
`Claude-User`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Claude-User`
`Perplexity-User`	Perplexity	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Perplexity-User`
`MistralAI-User`	Mistral	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: MistralAI-User`
`Meta-ExternalFetcher`	Meta	Blocked	line 162 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher`

SEO tools

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`AhrefsBot`	Ahrefs	Blocked	line 165 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`SemrushBot`	Semrush	Blocked	line 165 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`MJ12bot`	Majestic	Blocked	line 165 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DotBot`	Moz	Blocked	line 165 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`

View www.sohu.com/robots.txt · 166 lines

1User-agent: Baiduspider

2User-agent: YisouSpider

3User-agent: msnbot

4User-agent: Googlebot

5User-agent: bingbot

6User-agent: DingTalkBot

7User-agent: Pinterestbot

8User-agent: sogou web spider

9User-agent: 360Spider

10User-agent: Mediapartners-Google

11Allow: /a/*?*

12Allow: /abroad_a/*?*

13Allow: /picture/*?*

14Allow: /*_a(/qihoo_a)/*?*

15Allow: /collection/*?*

16Allow: /ab_a/*?*

17Allow: /classic*?*

18Allow: /?*$

19Allow: /new*?*

20Allow: /business*?*

21Allow: /it*?*

22Allow: /fashion*?*

23Allow: /learning*?*

24Allow: /health*?*

25Allow: /yule*?*

26Allow: /mt*?*

27Allow: /travel*?*

28Allow: /baobao*?*

29Allow: /chihe*?*

30Allow: /cul*?*

31Allow: /history*?*

32Allow: /gov*?*

33Allow: /gongyi*?*

34Allow: /police*?*

35Allow: /mil*?*

36Allow: /acg*?*

37Allow: /astro*?*

38Allow: /game*?*

39Allow: /pets*?*

40Allow: /sports*?*

41Allow: /subject/*?*

42Allow: /xtopic/*?*

43Allow: /xchannel/*?*

44Allow: /kindfeed/*?*

45Allow: /kindlist/*?*

46Allow: /sitemap/*?*

47Disallow: /*?*

49User-agent: Bytespider

50User-agent: ToutiaoSpider

51Allow: /a/*?*

52Allow: /abroad_a/*?*

53Allow: /picture/*?*

54Allow: /*_a(/qihoo_a)/*?*

55Allow: /collection/*?*

56Allow: /ab_a/*?*

57Allow: /classic*?*

58Allow: /?*$

59Allow: /new*?*

60Allow: /business*?*

61Allow: /it*?*

62Allow: /fashion*?*

63Allow: /learning*?*

64Allow: /health*?*

65Allow: /yule*?*

66Allow: /mt*?*

67Allow: /travel*?*

68Allow: /baobao*?*

69Allow: /chihe*?*

70Allow: /cul*?*

71Allow: /history*?*

72Allow: /gov*?*

73Allow: /gongyi*?*

74Allow: /police*?*

75Allow: /mil*?*

76Allow: /acg*?*

77Allow: /astro*?*

78Allow: /game*?*

79Allow: /pets*?*

80Allow: /sports*?*

81Allow: /subject/*?*

82Allow: /integration-api/*?*

83Allow: /public-api/*?*

84Allow: /xtopic/*?*

85Allow: /xchannel/*?*

86Allow: /kindfeed/*?*

87Allow: /kindlist/*?*

88Allow: /sitemap/*?*

89Disallow: /*?*

91User-agent: GPTBot

92User-agent: OAI-SearchBot

93User-agent: ChatGPT-User

94User-agent: ClaudeBot

95User-agent: Claude-SearchBot

96User-agent: Claude-User

97User-agent: Claude-Web

98User-agent: anthropic-ai

99User-agent: Google-Extended

100User-agent: Google-Agent

101User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot

102User-agent: Gemini-Deep-Research

103User-agent: PerplexityBot

104User-agent: Perplexity-User

105User-agent: DeepSeekBot

106User-agent: CCBot

107User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent

108User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher

109User-agent: FacebookBot

110User-agent: Applebot

111User-agent: Applebot-Extended

112User-agent: Amazonbot

113User-agent: DuckAssistBot

114User-agent: MistralAI-User

115User-agent: YouBot

116User-agent: cohere-ai

117User-agent: Diffbot

118User-agent: omgili

119User-agent: FacebookExternalHit

120User-agent: xAI-Bot

121User-agent: AddSearchBot

122User-agent: bigsur.ai

123User-agent: FirecrawlAgent

124Allow: /a/

125Allow: /abroad_a/

126Allow: /picture/

127Allow: /*_a(/qihoo_a)/

128Allow: /collection/

129Allow: /ab_a/

130Allow: /classic

131Allow: /limit/

132Allow: /$

133Allow: /?*$

134Allow: /new

135Allow: /business

136Allow: /it

137Allow: /fashion

138Allow: /learning

139Allow: /health

140Allow: /yule

141Allow: /mt

142Allow: /travel

143Allow: /baobao

144Allow: /chihe

145Allow: /cul

146Allow: /history

147Allow: /gov

148Allow: /gongyi

149Allow: /police

150Allow: /mil

151Allow: /acg

152Allow: /astro

153Allow: /game

154Allow: /pets

155Allow: /sports

156Allow: /subject/

157Allow: /xtopic/

158Allow: /xchannel/

159Allow: /kindfeed/

160Allow: /kindlist/

161Allow: /sitemap/

162Disallow: /

163

164User-agent: *

165Disallow: /

166

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does sohu.com block GPTBot?

Yes. sohu.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 162: 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 sohu.com block ClaudeBot?

Yes. sohu.com’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 162: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does sohu.com block Google-Extended?

Yes. sohu.com’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 162: 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 sohu.com block PerplexityBot?

Yes. sohu.com’s robots.txt disallows PerplexityBot from the whole site (line 162: Disallow: /). PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find sohu.com?

Not through its own crawler. sohu.com’s robots.txt disallows OAI-SearchBot from the whole site (line 162: Disallow: /). OAI-SearchBot is the crawler behind ChatGPT search; blocking it keeps the site out of ChatGPT’s search answers. Checked 9 November 2026.