Who blocks AI · #598 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does technologyreview.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. technologyreview.com’s robots.txt blocks 14 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and 11 more. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotBlocked ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotBlocked Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: www.technologyreview.com/robots.txt · 118 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 89 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: OAI-SearchBot`
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Blocked	line 102 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: PerplexityBot`
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Blocked	line 48 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: DuckAssistBot`
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Blocked	line 9 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Amazonbot`
`YouBot`	You.com	Blocked	line 117 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: YouBot`

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 66 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTbot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 33 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 62 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 26 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 15 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Blocked	line 76 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 22 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Bytespider`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 30 · `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	Blocked	line 80 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher`

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.technologyreview.com/robots.txt · 118 lines

1Sitemap: https://www.technologyreview.com/sitemap.xml

2Sitemap: https://www.technologyreview.com/news-sitemap.xml

3User-agent: *

4Disallow: /wp-admin/

5Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

6Disallow: /*.pdf$

8User-agent: Amazonbot

9Disallow: /

11User-agent: anthropic-ai

12Disallow: /

14User-agent: Applebot-Extended

15Disallow: /

17User-agent: AwarioRssBot

18User-agent: AwarioSmartBot

19Disallow: /

21User-agent: Bytespider

22Disallow: /

24## Common Crawl crawler (https://commoncrawl.org/faq)

25User-agent: CCBot

26Disallow: /

28## OpenAI ChatGPT service (https://platform.openai.com/docs/plugins/bot)

29User-agent: ChatGPT-User

30Disallow: /

32User-agent: ClaudeBot

33Disallow: /

35User-agent: Claude-Web

36Disallow: /

38User-agent: cohere-ai

39Disallow: /

41User-agent: DataForSeoBot

42Disallow: /

44User-agent: Diffbot

45Disallow: /

47User-agent: DuckAssistBot

48Disallow: /

50User-agent: FacebookBot

51Disallow: /

53User-agent: FriendlyCrawler

54Disallow: /

56User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot

57Disallow: /

58Allow: /wirecutter/

60## Google Bard / Gemini crawler (https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/overview-google-crawlers)

61User-agent: Google-Extended

62Disallow: /

64## OpenAI GPTBot crawler (https://platform.openai.com/docs/gptbot)

65User-agent: GPTbot

66Disallow: /

68User-agent: ImagesiftBot

69Disallow: /

71User-agent: magpie-crawler

72Disallow: /

74User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent

75User-agent: meta-externalagent

76Disallow: /

78User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher

79User-agent: meta-externalfetcher

80Disallow: /

82User-agent: NewsNow

83Disallow: /

85User-agent: news-please

86Disallow: /

88User-agent: OAI-SearchBot

89Disallow: /

91User-agent: omgili

92Disallow: /

94User-agent: omgilibot

95Disallow: /

97User-agent: peer39_crawler

98User-agent: peer39_crawler/1.0

99Disallow: /

100

101User-agent: PerplexityBot

102Disallow: /

103

104User-agent: Quora-Bot

105Disallow: /

106

107User-agent: Scrapy

108Disallow: /

109

110User-agent: Timpibot

111Disallow: /

112

113User-agent: TurnitinBot

114Disallow: /

115

116User-agent: YouBot

117Disallow: /

118

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does technologyreview.com block GPTBot?

Yes. technologyreview.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 66: 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 technologyreview.com block ClaudeBot?

Yes. technologyreview.com’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 33: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does technologyreview.com block Google-Extended?

Yes. technologyreview.com’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 62: 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 technologyreview.com block PerplexityBot?

Yes. technologyreview.com’s robots.txt disallows PerplexityBot from the whole site (line 102: Disallow: /). PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find technologyreview.com?

Not through its own crawler. technologyreview.com’s robots.txt disallows OAI-SearchBot from the whole site (line 89: Disallow: /). OAI-SearchBot is the crawler behind ChatGPT search; blocking it keeps the site out of ChatGPT’s search answers. Checked 9 November 2026.