Who blocks AI · #193 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does techcrunch.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. techcrunch.com’s robots.txt blocks 7 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and 4 more. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: techcrunch.com/robots.txt · 48 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	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 41 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 26 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 38 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 19 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 13 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 16 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Bytespider`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 22 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ChatGPT-User`
`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 techcrunch.com/robots.txt · 48 lines

1User-agent: *

2Disallow: /wp-admin/

3Disallow: /wp-json/

4Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

5Disallow: /search/

6Disallow: /?s=

7Disallow: /*?customize_changeset_uuid=*

9User-agent: anthropic-ai

10Disallow: /

12User-agent: Applebot-Extended

13Disallow: /

15User-agent: Bytespider

16Disallow: /

18User-agent: CCBot

19Disallow: /

21User-agent: ChatGPT-User

22Disallow: /

24User-agent: Claude-Web

25User-agent: ClaudeBot

26Disallow: /

28User-agent: cohere-ai

29Disallow: /

31User-agent: Diffbot

32Disallow: /

34User-agent: FacebookBot

35Disallow: /

37User-agent: Google-Extended

38Disallow: /

40User-agent: GPTBot

41Disallow: /

43User-agent: omgili

44Disallow: /

46Sitemap: https://techcrunch.com/sitemap.xml

47Sitemap: https://techcrunch.com/news-sitemap.xml

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does techcrunch.com block GPTBot?

Yes. techcrunch.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 41: 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 techcrunch.com block ClaudeBot?

Yes. techcrunch.com’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 26: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does techcrunch.com block Google-Extended?

Yes. techcrunch.com’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 38: 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 techcrunch.com block PerplexityBot?

No. techcrunch.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 techcrunch.com?

Yes. techcrunch.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.