Who blocks AI · #77 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does soundcloud.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. soundcloud.com’s robots.txt blocks 13 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and 10 more. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotBlocked ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotBlocked Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: soundcloud.com/robots.txt · 71 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	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	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: OAI-SearchBot`
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: PerplexityBot`
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Claude-SearchBot`
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Amazonbot`
`YouBot`	You.com	Allowed	no rule matches the home page

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Bytespider`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ChatGPT-User`
`Claude-User`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 57 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Claude-User`
`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 soundcloud.com/robots.txt · 71 lines

1# =============================================================================

2# robots.txt for soundcloud.com

3# Updated: 2026-10-21

4# =============================================================================

6# AI Crawlers: editorial only, no UGC training

7User-Agent: anthropic-ai

8User-Agent: ClaudeBot

9User-Agent: Claude-Web

10User-Agent: Claude-User

11User-Agent: Claude-SearchBot

12User-Agent: GPTBot

13User-Agent: ChatGPT-User

14User-Agent: OAI-SearchBot

15User-Agent: CCBot

16User-Agent: PerplexityBot

17User-Agent: Google-Extended

18User-Agent: Applebot-Extended

19User-Agent: Bytespider

20User-Agent: Amazonbot

21User-Agent: Meta-ExternalAgent

22User-Agent: cohere-ai

23User-Agent: omgili

24User-Agent: omgilibot

25User-Agent: Brightbot

27# Homepage

28Allow: /$

30# Platform: Legal & Policy

31Allow: /terms-of-use

32Allow: /community-guidelines

33Allow: /transparency-reports

34Allow: /accessibility-statement

35Allow: /imprint

37# Platform: Discovery & Editorial

38Allow: /discover

39Allow: /stories

40Allow: /topic

42# Platform: Product & Marketing

43Allow: /pro

44Allow: /download

45Allow: /jobs

46Allow: /go

47Allow: /getstarted

49# Platform: Corporate

50Allow: /company

52# Platform: Technical

53Allow: /sitemap

54Allow: /sitemapIndex

56# Block everything else (catches all UGC at root paths)

57Disallow: /

59# Search engines and all other crawlers: index UGC, block low-value paths

60User-Agent: *

61Disallow: /search

62Disallow: /you/

63Disallow: /stream

64Disallow: /upload

65Disallow: /settings

66Disallow: /messages

67Disallow: /*?

69Sitemap: https://soundcloud.com/sitemap.xml

70Sitemap: https://soundcloud.com/sitemapIndex.xml

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.
26 October 2026: started blocking Claude-SearchBot; started blocking Claude-User.

Questions

Does soundcloud.com block GPTBot?

Yes. soundcloud.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 57: 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 soundcloud.com block ClaudeBot?

Yes. soundcloud.com’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 57: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does soundcloud.com block Google-Extended?

Yes. soundcloud.com’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 57: 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 soundcloud.com block PerplexityBot?

Yes. soundcloud.com’s robots.txt disallows PerplexityBot from the whole site (line 57: Disallow: /). PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find soundcloud.com?

Not through its own crawler. soundcloud.com’s robots.txt disallows OAI-SearchBot from the whole site (line 57: Disallow: /). OAI-SearchBot is the crawler behind ChatGPT search; blocking it keeps the site out of ChatGPT’s search answers. Checked 9 November 2026.