Who blocks AI · #476 in the Majestic Million
robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026
Does techtarget.com block AI crawlers?
No. techtarget.com’s robots.txt lets all 19 AI crawlers we track crawl the site, though it keeps Amazonbot out of some paths. It also blocks PetalBot among search engines.
GPTBotAllowedOAI-SearchBotAllowedClaudeBotAllowedPerplexityBotAllowedGoogle-ExtendedAllowedCCBotAllowed- robots.txt
- www.techtarget.com/robots.txt · 191 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 | Blocked | line 113 · Disallow: / under User-agent: PetalBot |
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 | Partly blocked | line 164 · Disallow: /admin/ line 165 · Disallow: /newsletter/ and 15 more |
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 | Partly blocked | line 137 · Disallow: /admin/ line 138 · Disallow: /newsletter/ and 14 more |
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.techtarget.com/robots.txt · 191 lines
1#
2# ..;coxkOOOOOOkxoc;'.
3# .:d0NWMMMMMMMMMMMMMMWN0xc'
4# .:kXMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMXl.
5# .c0WMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMXd'
6# ,OWMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMXo' ..
7# cXMMMMMMXo::::::::::::::col. .lKXl.
8# lNMMMMMMM0' .lKWMMNo
9# :XMMMMMMMM0' .l0WMMMMMNc
10# .OMMMMMMMMM0' .ccccccc;. ,KMMMMMMMMO.
11# :NMMMMMMMMM0' oWMMMMMMWKc. oWMMMMMMMN:
12# lWMMMMMMMMM0' oWMMMMMMMMX: ,KMMMMMMMMo
13# oMMMMMMMMMM0' oWMMMMMMMMNc ,KMMMMMMMMd
14# cNMMMMMMMMM0' oWMMMMMMMNd. lWMMMMMMMWl
15# '0MMMMMMMMWk. ,oooooooc' ,0MMMMMMMMK,
16# oWMMMMMMXo. ,0MMMMMMMMWo
17# .xWMMMXd' ,dXMMMMMMMMWk.
18# .xWNx' .',''''''',,;coONMMMMMMMMMWk.
19# .:, .l0WWWWWWWWWWWMMMMMMMMMMMMMNd.
20# .lKWMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMWk;
21# .lKWMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNk;.
22# .ckXWMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMWXkl'
23# .;ldO0XNWWWWWWNXKOxl;.
24# ..'',,,,''..
25#
26#
27
28# NOTE: Allow is a non-standard directive for robots.txt. It is allowed by Google bots. See https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_txt#allow
29
30User-agent: *
31# Crawl delay asks bots to wait this many seconds between requests. Ignored by google.
32Crawl-delay: 5
33Disallow: /admin/
34Disallow: /newsletter/
35Disallow: /healthcheck/
36Disallow: /subpage/
37Disallow: /ckeditor/
38Disallow: /api/
39Disallow: /static/images/
40Disallow: /subscriber/
41Disallow: /selfservice/
42Disallow: /press-release/preview/
43Disallow: /press-release/editor/
44
45# no deep queries to search
46Disallow: /search/*
47Allow: /search/$
48
49# don't index our dynamic images
50Disallow: /user_media/
51Disallow: /imgproxy/
52
53# don't deep index topic pages
54Disallow: /topic/?page=*
55
56Allow: /sitemap.xml
57
58#
59# Rules for specific crawlers below. Note that these don't stack. If you create a specific user-agent rule
60# you should copy the rules over from '*' above by hand.
61#
62
63# Allow Twitter to see all links
64User-agent: Twitterbot
65Crawl-delay: 5
66Disallow:
67
68# Allow Googlebot-News to see header images and favicons, BUT make it follow all the directives from our * group
69# See below link for why we have to repeat these directives
70# https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_txt#order-of-precedence-for-user-agents
71User-agent: Googlebot-News
72Disallow: /admin/
73Disallow: /newsletter/
74Disallow: /healthcheck/
75Disallow: /subpage/
76Disallow: /ckeditor/
77Disallow: /api/
78Disallow: /static/images/
79Disallow: /subscriber/
80Disallow: /selfservice/
81Disallow: /press-release/preview/
82Disallow: /press-release/editor/
83
84# no deep queries to search
85Disallow: /search/*
86Allow: /search/$
87
88Allow: /google_news_sitemap.xml
89# Allow Google News to see header images and favicons
90Allow: /user_media/
91Allow: /imgproxy/
92
93
94# Googlebot-Image is now used for favicons. Allow it to see favicon-related files but nothing else
95User-agent: Googlebot-Image
96Disallow: /
97Allow: /imgproxy/
98Allow: /favicon.ico
99Allow: /white-favicon.ico
100Allow: /apple-touch-icon.png
101Allow: /favicon-32x32.png
102Allow: /white-favicon-32x32.png
103Allow: /favicon-16x16.png
104Allow: /white-favicon-16x16.png
105Allow: /site.webmanifest
106Allow: /safari-pinned-tab.svg
107Allow: /browserconfig.xml
108Allow: /android-chrome-144x144.png
109Allow: /mstile-150x150.png
110
111# Don't let PetalBot crawl at all
112User-agent: PetalBot
113Disallow: /
114
115# Block sentione.com
116User-agent: sentibot
117Disallow: /
118
119# block seoclarity.net/bot.html
120User-agent: claritybot
121Disallow: /
122
123# block omgili.com/crawler.html
124User-Agent: omgilibot
125Disallow: /
126User-Agent: omgili
127Disallow: /
128
129# All Facebook crawler user-agent to see all
130User-agent: facebookexternalhit/1.1
131Disallow:
132
133User-agent: AhrefsBot
134# We want this bot to crawl way slower https://ahrefs.com/robot/
135Crawl-Delay: 30
136
137Disallow: /admin/
138Disallow: /newsletter/
139Disallow: /healthcheck/
140Disallow: /subpage/
141Disallow: /ckeditor/
142Disallow: /api/
143Disallow: /static/images/
144Disallow: /subscriber/
145Disallow: /selfservice/
146Disallow: /press-release/preview/
147Disallow: /press-release/editor/
148
149# no deep queries to search
150Disallow: /search/*
151Allow: /search/$
152
153# don't index our dynamic images
154Disallow: /user_media/
155Disallow: /imgproxy/
156
157Disallow: /topic/
158Disallow: /editors/
159
160User-agent: Amazonbot
161# Restrict what Amazonbot (Alexa) can see, and a
162Crawl-Delay: 10
163
164Disallow: /admin/
165Disallow: /newsletter/
166Disallow: /healthcheck/
167Disallow: /subpage/
168Disallow: /ckeditor/
169Disallow: /api/
170Disallow: /static/images/
171Disallow: /subscriber/
172Disallow: /selfservice/
173Disallow: /press-release/preview/
174Disallow: /press-release/editor/
175
176# no deep queries to search
177Disallow: /search/*
178Allow: /search/$
179
180# don't index our dynamic images
181Disallow: /user_media/
182Disallow: /imgproxy/
183
184Disallow: /topic/
185Disallow: /editors/
186Disallow: /signup/*
187Allow: /signup/$
188
189User-agent: amazon-kendra # Amazon Kendra Web Crawler
190Disallow: /
191
What do the bots actually get?
This page reads robots.txt, which states what techtarget.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 techtarget.com Test a path in the robots.txt tester
History
- 19 October 2026: first checked.
- 2 November 2026: changed its rules for Bingbot; started blocking PetalBot; now blocks part of the site to Amazonbot; now blocks part of the site to AhrefsBot.
Questions
Does techtarget.com block GPTBot?
No. techtarget.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 techtarget.com block ClaudeBot?
No. techtarget.com’s robots.txt lets ClaudeBot crawl the site. ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.
Does techtarget.com block Google-Extended?
No. techtarget.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 techtarget.com block PerplexityBot?
No. techtarget.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 techtarget.com?
Yes. techtarget.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.