Who blocks AI · #1029 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does thefreedictionary.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. thefreedictionary.com’s robots.txt blocks 15 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and 12 more. It also blocks PetalBot among search engines.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotBlocked ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotBlocked Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: www.thefreedictionary.com/robots.txt · 53 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	Blocked	line 51 · `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	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: OAI-SearchBot`
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: PerplexityBot`
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Claude-SearchBot`
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: DuckAssistBot`
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Blocked	line 34 · `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 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GoogleOther`
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: meta-externalagent`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Bytespider`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Blocked	line 34 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ChatGPT-User`
`Claude-User`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 34 · `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	Blocked	line 51 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: AhrefsBot`
`SemrushBot`	Semrush	Blocked	line 51 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: SemrushBot`
`MJ12bot`	Majestic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DotBot`	Moz	Blocked	line 51 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: DotBot`

View www.thefreedictionary.com/robots.txt · 53 lines

2User-agent: Mediapartners-Google

3Disallow:

7User-agent: *

8Disallow: /p/

9Disallow: /d/

10Disallow: /_/misc/

11Disallow: /_/search/

12Disallow: /_/cite.htm

13Disallow: /_/gr.aspx

14Disallow: /_/hp/Controls/printer-friendly.aspx

15Disallow: /unscramble/

17User-agent: meta-externalagent

18User-agent: GPTBot

19User-agent: OAI-SearchBot

20User-agent: ClaudeBot

21User-agent: Claude-SearchBot

22User-agent: Claude-User

23User-agent: ChatGPT-User

24User-agent: CCBot

25User-agent: Applebot-Extended

26User-agent: Google-Extended

27User-agent: GoogleOther

28User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot

29User-agent: Amazonbot

30User-agent: Bytespider

31User-agent: TikTokSpider

32User-agent: DuckAssistBot

33User-agent: PerplexityBot

34Disallow: /

37User-agent: AhrefsBot

38User-agent: SemrushBot

39User-agent: MJ12bot

40User-agent: DotBot

41User-agent: DataForSeoBot

42User-agent: MauiBot

43User-agent: AlphaSeoBot

44User-agent: BLEXBot

45User-agent: SEOkicks-Robot

46User-agent: Wotbox

47User-agent: AspiegelBot

48User-agent: PetalBot

49User-agent: archive.org_bot

50User-agent: ia_archiver

51Disallow: /

53Sitemap: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/www.thefreedictionary.com.xml.gz

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does thefreedictionary.com block GPTBot?

Yes. thefreedictionary.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 34: 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 thefreedictionary.com block ClaudeBot?

Yes. thefreedictionary.com’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 34: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does thefreedictionary.com block Google-Extended?

Yes. thefreedictionary.com’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 34: 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 thefreedictionary.com block PerplexityBot?

Yes. thefreedictionary.com’s robots.txt disallows PerplexityBot from the whole site (line 34: Disallow: /). PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find thefreedictionary.com?

Not through its own crawler. thefreedictionary.com’s robots.txt disallows OAI-SearchBot from the whole site (line 34: Disallow: /). OAI-SearchBot is the crawler behind ChatGPT search; blocking it keeps the site out of ChatGPT’s search answers. Checked 9 November 2026.