Who blocks AI · #1152 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does timesofisrael.com block AI crawlers?

No. timesofisrael.com’s robots.txt lets all 19 AI crawlers we track crawl the site. It also blocks Bingbot among search engines.

GPTBotAllowed OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotAllowed PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedAllowed CCBotAllowed

robots.txt: www.timesofisrael.com/robots.txt · 67 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	Blocked	line 29 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: msnbot`
`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	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Google-Extended`	Google	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`	Google	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	Blocked	line 32 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: AhrefsBot`
`SemrushBot`	Semrush	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`MJ12bot`	Majestic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DotBot`	Moz	Blocked	line 41 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: DotBot`

View www.timesofisrael.com/robots.txt · 67 lines

1# Google Image

2User-agent: Googlebot-Image

3Disallow:

4Allow: /*

6# Google AdSense

7User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*

8Disallow:

9Allow: /*

11# digg mirror

12User-agent: duggmirror

13Disallow: /

15# Twitter

16User-agent: Twitterbot

17Disallow:

18Allow: /*

20# Google News

21User-agent: Googlebot-News

22Disallow: /announcements/

24# MSN

25User-agent: msnbot

26Crawl-delay: 3

28User-agent: weborama-fetcher

29Disallow: /

31User-agent: AhrefsBot

32Disallow: /

34User-agent: 360Spider

35Disallow: /

37User-agent: YisouSpider

38Disallow: /

40User-agent: DotBot

41Disallow: /

43# global

44User-agent: *

45Disallow: /cgi-bin/

46Disallow: /wp-admin/

47Disallow: /wp-login.php

48Disallow: /wp-includes/

49Disallow: /wp-content/cache/

50Disallow: /trackback/

51Disallow: /rss-feed/

52Disallow: /feed/

53Disallow: /comments/

54Disallow: /cities/

55Disallow: /types/

56Disallow: /anniversaries/

57Disallow: /companies/

58Disallow: /test-hp/

59Disallow: *preview=true*

60Disallow: /?p=*

61Disallow: *3933714/TOI*

62Disallow: /wp-content/themes/rgb/ajax/

63Disallow: /wpcontent/themes/rbg/functions/

65Sitemap: https://www.timesofisrael.com/sitemap_index.xml

66Sitemap: https://www.timesofisrael.com/news-sitemap.xml

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does timesofisrael.com block GPTBot?

No. timesofisrael.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 timesofisrael.com block ClaudeBot?

No. timesofisrael.com’s robots.txt lets ClaudeBot crawl the site. ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does timesofisrael.com block Google-Extended?

No. timesofisrael.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 timesofisrael.com block PerplexityBot?

No. timesofisrael.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 timesofisrael.com?

Yes. timesofisrael.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.