Who blocks AI · #754 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does thetimes.co.uk block AI crawlers?

Yes. thetimes.co.uk’s robots.txt blocks 15 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot and 12 more. It also blocks PetalBot, YandexBot and Baiduspider among search engines.

GPTBotPartly blocked OAI-SearchBotPartly blocked ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotBlocked Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: www.thetimes.co.uk/robots.txt · 69 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	Partly blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /api/` line 62 · `Disallow: /archive/page/` and 6 more
`Bingbot`	Microsoft	Partly blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /api/` line 62 · `Disallow: /archive/page/` and 6 more
`DuckDuckBot`	DuckDuckGo	Partly blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /api/` line 62 · `Disallow: /archive/page/` and 6 more
`Applebot`	Apple	Partly blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /api/` line 62 · `Disallow: /archive/page/` and 6 more
`PetalBot`	Huawei	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`YandexBot`	Yandex	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Baiduspider`	Baidu	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`

AI search

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`OAI-SearchBot`	OpenAI	Partly blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /api/` line 62 · `Disallow: /archive/page/` and 6 more
`PerplexityBot`	Perplexity	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`YouBot`	You.com	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`

AI training

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`GPTBot`	OpenAI	Partly blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /api/` line 62 · `Disallow: /archive/page/` and 6 more
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Partly blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /api/` line 62 · `Disallow: /archive/page/` and 6 more
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`

User-triggered fetchers

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`ChatGPT-User`	OpenAI	Partly blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /api/` line 62 · `Disallow: /archive/page/` and 6 more
`Claude-User`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Perplexity-User`	Perplexity	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`MistralAI-User`	Mistral	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`Meta-ExternalFetcher`	Meta	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`

SEO tools

Bot	Operator	robots.txt	Deciding line
`AhrefsBot`	Ahrefs	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`SemrushBot`	Semrush	Partly blocked	line 61 · `Disallow: /api/` line 62 · `Disallow: /archive/page/` and 6 more
`MJ12bot`	Majestic	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`
`DotBot`	Moz	Blocked	line 6 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *`

View www.thetimes.co.uk/robots.txt · 69 lines

1# This is the robots.txt file for thetimes.co.uk

2# The Times does not permit the unlicensed use of our content for large language models. Contact enquiries@newslicensing.co.uk for assistance.

5User-agent: *

6Disallow: /

9User-agent: Googlebot

10User-agent: Googlebot-Image

11User-agent: Googlebot-Video

12User-agent: Googlebot-News

13User-agent: Google-InspectionTool

14User-agent: GoogleOther

15User-agent: APIs-Google

16User-agent: Mediapartners-Google

17User-agent: DuckDuckBot

18User-agent: Slurp

19User-agent: Twitterbot

20User-agent: Bingbot

21User-agent: adidxbot

22User-agent: MicrosoftPreview

23User-agent: Applebot

24User-agent: AdsBot-Google

25User-agent: AmazonAdBot

26User-agent: facebookexternalhit

27User-agent: Yahoo Ad Monitoring

28User-agent: parse.ly scraper

29User-agent: Screaming Frog SEO Spider

30User-agent: SemrushBot

31User-agent: Botify

32User-agent: OnCrawl

33User-agent: Chrome-Lighthouse

34User-agent: Slackbot-LinkExpanding

35User-agent: Slack-ImgProxy

36User-agent: Slackbot

37User-agent: Snap URL Preview Service

38User-agent: proximic

39User-agent: GumGum-Bot

40User-agent: TTD-Content

41User-agent: Pubmatic

42User-agent: ias_crawler

43User-agent: outbrain

44User-agent: Leikibot

45User-agent: weborama-fetcher

46User-agent: AHC/2.1

47User-agent: SirdataBot

48User-agent: peer39_crawler/1.0

49User-agent: EchoboxBot/1.0

50User-agent: CriteoBot/0.1

51User-agent: AdDefend Site Context Crawler/1.0

52User-agent: SmartologyBot

53User-agent: Dianomi

54User-agent: ChatGPT-User

55User-agent: GPTBot

56User-agent: OAI-SearchBot

59Allow: /

61Disallow: /api/

62Disallow: /archive/page/

63Disallow: /archive/article/

64Disallow: /archive/find/

65Disallow: /tto/archive/article/

66Disallow: /tto/archive/find/

67Disallow: /tto/archive/frame/article/

68Disallow: /tto/archive/page/

What do the bots actually get?

This page reads robots.txt, which states what thetimes.co.uk 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 thetimes.co.uk Test a path in the robots.txt tester

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does thetimes.co.uk block GPTBot?

Partly. thetimes.co.uk’s robots.txt keeps GPTBot out of some paths, such as /api/, and lets it crawl the rest. GPTBot is OpenAI’s crawler for training data; blocking it doesn’t affect ChatGPT search, which uses OAI-SearchBot. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does thetimes.co.uk block ClaudeBot?

Yes. thetimes.co.uk’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 6: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does thetimes.co.uk block Google-Extended?

Yes. thetimes.co.uk’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 6: 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 thetimes.co.uk block PerplexityBot?

Yes. thetimes.co.uk’s robots.txt disallows PerplexityBot from the whole site (line 6: Disallow: /). PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find thetimes.co.uk?

Partly. thetimes.co.uk’s robots.txt keeps OAI-SearchBot out of some paths, such as /api/, and lets it crawl the rest. OAI-SearchBot is the crawler behind ChatGPT search; blocking it keeps the site out of ChatGPT’s search answers. Checked 9 November 2026.