Who blocks AI · #67 in the Majestic Million
robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026
Does w3.org block AI crawlers?
No. w3.org’s robots.txt lets all 19 AI crawlers we track crawl the site. Search engines such as Googlebot and Bingbot may crawl it.
GPTBotAllowedOAI-SearchBotAllowedClaudeBotAllowedPerplexityBotAllowedGoogle-ExtendedAllowedCCBotAllowed- robots.txt
- www.w3.org/robots.txt · 131 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | Allowed | no rule matches the home page |
SemrushBot | Semrush | Allowed | no rule matches the home page |
MJ12bot | Majestic | Allowed | no rule matches the home page |
DotBot | Moz | Allowed | no rule matches the home page |
View www.w3.org/robots.txt · 131 lines
1#
2# robots.txt for https://www.w3.org/
3#
4# $Id: robots.txt,v 1.107 2026/10/07 16:17:21 gerald Exp $
5#
6
7# the following settings apply to all bots
8User-agent: *
9# Blogs - WordPress
10# https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/search-engine-optimization/#robots-txt-optimization
11Disallow: /*/wp-admin/
12Disallow: /*/wp-includes/
13Disallow: /*/wp-content/plugins/
14Disallow: /*/wp-content/cache/
15Disallow: /*/wp-content/themes/
16Disallow: /blog/?
17Disallow: /blog/*/trackback/
18Disallow: /blog/*/feed/
19Disallow: /blog/*/comments/
20Disallow: /blog/*/category/*/*
21Disallow: /blog/*/*/trackback/
22Disallow: /blog/*/*/feed/
23Disallow: /blog/*/*/comments/
24Disallow: /blog/*/*?
25Disallow: /community/trackback/
26Disallow: /community/feed/
27Disallow: /community/comments/
28Disallow: /community/category/*/*
29Disallow: /community/*/trackback/
30Disallow: /community/*/feed/
31Disallow: /community/*/comments/
32Disallow: /community/*/category/*/*
33Disallow: /community/*?
34Disallow: /Consortium/Offices/trackback/
35Disallow: /Consortium/Offices/feed/
36Disallow: /Consortium/Offices/comments/
37Disallow: /Consortium/Offices/category/*/*
38Disallow: /Consortium/Offices/*/trackback/
39Disallow: /Consortium/Offices/*/feed/
40Disallow: /Consortium/Offices/*/comments/
41Disallow: /Consortium/Offices/*?
42# Wikis - Mediawiki
43# https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Robots.txt
44Disallow: /wiki/index.php?
45Disallow: /wiki/index.php/Help
46Disallow: /wiki/index.php/MediaWiki
47Disallow: /wiki/index.php/Special:
48Disallow: /wiki/index.php/Template
49Disallow: /wiki/Special:
50Disallow: /wiki/Help:
51Disallow: /wiki/Talk:
52Disallow: /wiki/skins/
53Disallow: /wiki/*/info
54Disallow: /wiki/*/edit
55Disallow: /wiki/*/history
56Disallow: /*/wiki/index.php?
57Disallow: /*/wiki/index.php/Help
58Disallow: /*/wiki/index.php/MediaWiki
59Disallow: /*/wiki/index.php/Special:
60Disallow: /*/wiki/index.php/Template
61Disallow: /*/wiki/Special:
62Disallow: /*/wiki/Help:
63Disallow: /*/wiki/Talk:
64Disallow: /*/wiki/skins/
65Disallow: /*/wiki/*/info
66Disallow: /*/wiki/*/edit
67Disallow: /*/wiki/*/history
68# various other access-controlled or expensive areas
69Disallow: /2004/ontaria/basic
70Disallow: /Member/
71Disallow: /Team/
72Disallow: /Project/
73Disallow: /Web/
74Disallow: /Systems/
75Disallow: /Out-Of-Date
76Disallow: /2005/06/blog/
77Disallow: /2004/08/W3CTalks
78Disallow: /2007/11/Talks/search
79Disallow: /People/all/
80Disallow: /people/all/
81Disallow: /People/domain/
82Disallow: /people/domain/
83Disallow: /RDF/Validator/ARPServlet
84Disallow: /RDF/Validator/rdfval
85Disallow: /2003/03/Translations/byLanguage
86Disallow: /2003/03/Translations/byTechnology
87Disallow: /2005/11/Translations/Query
88Disallow: /2000/06/webdata/xslt
89Disallow: /2000/09/webdata/xslt
90Disallow: /2005/08/online_xslt/xslt
91Disallow: /Search/Mail/Public/
92Disallow: /2006/02/chartergen
93Disallow: /2004/01/pp-impl
94Disallow: /Consortium/supporters
95Disallow: /2012/pyRdfa/extract
96Disallow: /2012/pyRdfa/?
97Disallow: /WAI/PF/comments/
98Disallow: /WAI/events/
99Disallow: /participate/conferences.xml
100Disallow: /scripts/
101Disallow: /2005/01/yacker/
102Disallow: /2005/01/yacker?
103Disallow: /2005/07/pubrules?
104Disallow: /ns/hydra/console/?
105Disallow: /2007/08/grddl/?
106Disallow: /2009/07/webidl-check?
107Disallow: /RDF/Validator/ARPServlet?
108Disallow: /2000/06/webdata/xsv?
109Disallow: /2000/09/webdata/xsv?
110Disallow: /2007/10/htmldiff?
111Disallow: /Style/CSS/members.be/
112Disallow: /services
113Disallow: /2021/05/view-gallery/
114Disallow: /International/questions/qa-html-language-declarations/icons/
115Disallow: /International/questions/qa-html-language-declarations/qa-html-language-declarations-data/icons/
116Disallow: /*,*
117Disallow: /WAI/beta/
118Disallow: /WAI/ut1/
119Disallow: /WAI/ut2/
120Disallow: /WAI/ut3/
121Disallow: /WAI/ut4/
122Disallow: /WAI/drafts/
123Disallow: /WAI/search/?
124Disallow: /TR/?
125Disallow: /groups/*/activity/*?
126
127# Allow W3C Link checker to check any paths on this site
128User-agent: W3C-checklink
129Disallow:
130
131
What do the bots actually get?
This page reads robots.txt, which states what w3.org 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 w3.org Test a path in the robots.txt tester
History
- 19 October 2026: first checked.
Questions
Does w3.org block GPTBot?
No. w3.org’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 w3.org block ClaudeBot?
No. w3.org’s robots.txt lets ClaudeBot crawl the site. ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.
Does w3.org block Google-Extended?
No. w3.org’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 w3.org block PerplexityBot?
No. w3.org’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 w3.org?
Yes. w3.org’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.