Who blocks AI · #1064 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does vt.edu block AI crawlers?

No. vt.edu’s robots.txt lets all 19 AI crawlers we track crawl the site. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.

GPTBotAllowed OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotAllowed PerplexityBotAllowed Google-ExtendedAllowed CCBotAllowed

robots.txt: www.vt.edu/content/dam/vt_edu/robots.txt · 80 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	Partly blocked	line 2 · `Disallow: /test/*` line 3 · `Disallow: /test.html` and 19 more
`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	line 51 · `Allow: /` under `User-agent: meta-externalagent`
`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	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`SemrushBot`	Semrush	Partly blocked	line 27 · `Disallow: /test/*` line 28 · `Disallow: /test.html` and 19 more
`MJ12bot`	Majestic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DotBot`	Moz	Allowed	no rule matches the home page

View www.vt.edu/content/dam/vt_edu/robots.txt · 80 lines

1User-agent: bingbot

2Disallow: /test/*

3Disallow: /test.html

4Disallow: */admissions/*do-not-crawl

5Disallow: /admissions/*_old

6Disallow: /admissions/*_ref_

7Disallow: /admissions/*_remove_

8Disallow: /admissions/info

9Disallow: /admissions/error

10Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/redirect*

11Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/sandbox*

12Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/*update.html

13Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/*cancel.html

14Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/*reprint.html

15Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/hokiefocus/closed.html

16Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/hokiepreview/closed.html

17Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/gateway/closed.html

18Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/fallvisitation/closed.html

19Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/openhouse/closed.html

20Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/apply/freshmen/secondchoicemajor-us.html

21Disallow: /innovationcampus/Ref.html

22Disallow: /150/*

24Crawl-delay: 10

26User-agent: SemrushBot

27Disallow: /test/*

28Disallow: /test.html

29Disallow: */admissions/*do-not-crawl

30Disallow: /admissions/*_old

31Disallow: /admissions/*_ref_

32Disallow: /admissions/*_remove_

33Disallow: /admissions/info

34Disallow: /admissions/error

35Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/redirect*

36Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/sandbox*

37Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/*update.html

38Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/*cancel.html

39Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/*reprint.html

40Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/hokiefocus/closed.html

41Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/hokiepreview/closed.html

42Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/gateway/closed.html

43Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/fallvisitation/closed.html

44Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/openhouse/closed.html

45Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/apply/freshmen/secondchoicemajor-us.html

46Disallow: /innovationcampus/Ref.html

47Disallow: /150/*

48Crawl-delay: 10

50User-agent: meta-externalagent

51Allow: /

52Crawl-delay: 10

54User-agent: facebookexternalhit

55Allow: /

56Crawl-delay: 10

58User-agent: *

59Disallow: /test/*

60Disallow: /test.html

61Disallow: */admissions/*do-not-crawl

62Disallow: /admissions/*_old

63Disallow: /admissions/*_ref_

64Disallow: /admissions/*_remove_

65Disallow: /admissions/info

66Disallow: /admissions/error

67Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/redirect*

68Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/sandbox*

69Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/*update.html

70Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/*cancel.html

71Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/*reprint.html

72Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/hokiefocus/closed.html

73Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/hokiepreview/closed.html

74Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/gateway/closed.html

75Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/fallvisitation/closed.html

76Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/visit/openhouse/closed.html

77Disallow: /admissions/undergraduate/apply/freshmen/secondchoicemajor-us.html

78Disallow: /innovationcampus/Ref.html

79Disallow: /150/*

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does vt.edu block GPTBot?

No. vt.edu’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 vt.edu block ClaudeBot?

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

Does vt.edu block Google-Extended?

No. vt.edu’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 vt.edu block PerplexityBot?

No. vt.edu’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 vt.edu?

Yes. vt.edu’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.