Who blocks AI · #689 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does venturebeat.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. venturebeat.com’s robots.txt blocks 4 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including CCBot, Applebot-Extended, Bytespider and Amazonbot. It also blocks YandexBot among search engines.

GPTBotPartly blocked OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotPartly blocked PerplexityBotPartly blocked Google-ExtendedPartly blocked CCBotBlocked

robots.txt: venturebeat.com/robots.txt · 129 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 20 · `Disallow: /?s=` line 21 · `Disallow: /&s=` and 3 more
`Bingbot`	Microsoft	Partly blocked	line 26 · `Disallow: /?s=` line 27 · `Disallow: /&s=` and 3 more
`DuckDuckBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Applebot`	Apple	Partly blocked	line 20 · `Disallow: /?s=` line 21 · `Disallow: /&s=` and 3 more
`PetalBot`	Huawei	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`YandexBot`	Yandex	Blocked	line 109 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: YandexBot`
`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	Partly blocked	line 88 · `Disallow: /search` line 89 · `Disallow: /_next/` and 2 more
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Blocked	line 111 · `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	Partly blocked	line 62 · `Disallow: /search` line 63 · `Disallow: /_next/` and 2 more
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Partly blocked	line 69 · `Disallow: /search` line 70 · `Disallow: /_next/` and 2 more
`Google-Extended`	Google	Partly blocked	line 55 · `Disallow: /search` line 56 · `Disallow: /_next/` and 2 more
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Blocked	line 105 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: CCBot`
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 115 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Applebot-Extended`
`GoogleOther`	Google	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Meta-ExternalAgent`	Meta	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Bytespider`	ByteDance	Blocked	line 107 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Bytespider`

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 97 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: AhrefsBot`
`SemrushBot`	Semrush	Blocked	line 99 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: SemrushBot`
`MJ12bot`	Majestic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DotBot`	Moz	Blocked	line 103 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: dotbot`

View venturebeat.com/robots.txt · 129 lines

1# ============================================================

2# Last updated: 2026-11

3# ============================================================

4# ── Sitemaps ────────────────────────────────────────────────

5Sitemap: https://venturebeat.com/sitemap.xml

6Sitemap: https://venturebeat.com/news-sitemap.xml

7# ── Default rules (all crawlers not listed below) ───────────

8User-agent: *

9Disallow: /*?s=

10Disallow: /*&s=

11Disallow: /search

12Disallow: /_next/

13Disallow: /api/

14Disallow: /login

15Disallow: /sponsored-posts

16# ── Search engine crawlers ───────────────────────────────────

17# These crawlers ignore the * group because they have their own, so shared rules are repeated in each group

18# Google and Bing need /_next/ to fetch the CSS, JS and next/image files that render pages

19User-agent: Googlebot

20Disallow: /*?s=

21Disallow: /*&s=

22Disallow: /search

23Disallow: /api/

24Disallow: /login

25User-agent: Bingbot

26Disallow: /*?s=

27Disallow: /*&s=

28Disallow: /search

29Disallow: /api/

30Disallow: /login

31Crawl-delay: 5

32User-agent: MSNBot

33Disallow: /*?s=

34Disallow: /*&s=

35Disallow: /search

36Disallow: /api/

37Disallow: /login

38Crawl-delay: 5

39User-agent: BingPreview

40Disallow: /*?s=

41Disallow: /*&s=

42Disallow: /search

43Disallow: /api/

44Disallow: /login

45Crawl-delay: 5

46User-agent: Slurp

47Disallow: /search

48Disallow: /_next/

49Disallow: /api/

50Disallow: /login

51# ── AI Crawlers — EXPLICITLY ALLOWED ────────────────────────

52# Google Gemini / AI Overviews

53User-agent: Google-Extended

54Allow: /

55Disallow: /search

56Disallow: /_next/

57Disallow: /api/

58Disallow: /login

59# OpenAI / ChatGPT

60User-agent: GPTBot

61Allow: /

62Disallow: /search

63Disallow: /_next/

64Disallow: /api/

65Disallow: /login

66# Anthropic / Claude

67User-agent: ClaudeBot

68Allow: /

69Disallow: /search

70Disallow: /_next/

71Disallow: /api/

72Disallow: /login

73User-agent: Claude-Web

74Allow: /

75Disallow: /search

76Disallow: /_next/

77Disallow: /api/

78Disallow: /login

79User-agent: anthropic-ai

80Allow: /

81Disallow: /search

82Disallow: /_next/

83Disallow: /api/

84Disallow: /login

85# Perplexity AI

86User-agent: PerplexityBot

87Allow: /

88Disallow: /search

89Disallow: /_next/

90Disallow: /api/

91Disallow: /login

92# ── Utility / Legitimate bots ────────────────────────────────

93User-agent: TermlyBot

94Allow: /

95# ── Blocked crawlers ─────────────────────────────────────────

96User-agent: AhrefsBot

97Disallow: /

98User-agent: SemrushBot

99Disallow: /

100User-agent: MJ12bot

101Disallow: /

102User-agent: dotbot

103Disallow: /

104User-agent: CCBot

105Disallow: /

106User-agent: Bytespider

107Disallow: /

108User-agent: YandexBot

109Disallow: /

110User-agent: Amazonbot

111Disallow: /

112User-agent: amazon-QBusiness

113Disallow: /

114User-agent: Applebot-Extended

115Disallow: /

116User-agent: ImagesiftBot

117Disallow: /

118User-agent: MotoMinerBot

119Disallow: /

120User-agent: SentiBot

121Disallow: /

122User-agent: IRLbot

123Disallow: /

124User-agent: DF Bot 1.0

125Disallow: /

126User-agent: proximic

127Disallow: /

128User-agent: AwarioSmartBot

129Disallow: /

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does venturebeat.com block GPTBot?

Partly. venturebeat.com’s robots.txt keeps GPTBot out of some paths, such as /search, 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 venturebeat.com block ClaudeBot?

Partly. venturebeat.com’s robots.txt keeps ClaudeBot out of some paths, such as /search, and lets it crawl the rest. ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does venturebeat.com block Google-Extended?

Partly. venturebeat.com’s robots.txt keeps Google-Extended out of some paths, such as /search, and lets it crawl the rest. 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 venturebeat.com block PerplexityBot?

Partly. venturebeat.com’s robots.txt keeps PerplexityBot out of some paths, such as /search, and lets it crawl the rest. PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find venturebeat.com?

Yes. venturebeat.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.