Who blocks AI · #27 in the Majestic Million

robots.txt · checked 9 Nov 2026

Does whatsapp.com block AI crawlers?

Yes. whatsapp.com’s robots.txt blocks 6 of the 19 AI crawlers we track, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and 3 more. It also blocks PetalBot among search engines.

GPTBotBlocked OAI-SearchBotAllowed ClaudeBotBlocked PerplexityBotBlocked Google-ExtendedBlocked CCBotAllowed

robots.txt: www.whatsapp.com/robots.txt · 71 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	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	Blocked	line 32 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: PetalBot`
`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	Blocked	line 29 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: PerplexityBot`
`Claude-SearchBot`	Anthropic	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`DuckAssistBot`	DuckDuckGo	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Amazonbot`	Amazon	Blocked	line 11 · `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	Blocked	line 26 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: GPTBot`
`ClaudeBot`	Anthropic	Blocked	line 20 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: ClaudeBot`
`Google-Extended`	Google	Blocked	line 23 · `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: Google-Extended`
`CCBot`	Common Crawl	Allowed	no rule matches the home page
`Applebot-Extended`	Apple	Blocked	line 14 · `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	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.whatsapp.com/robots.txt · 71 lines

1# Notice: Collection of data on Facebook through automated means is

2# prohibited unless you have express written permission from Facebook

3# and may only be conducted for the limited purpose contained in said

4# permission.

5# See: http://www.facebook.com/apps/site_scraping_tos_terms.php

7User-agent: __usage_ai-training

8Disallow: /

10User-agent: Amazonbot

11Disallow: /

13User-agent: Applebot-Extended

14Disallow: /

16User-agent: Brightbot

17Disallow: /

19User-agent: ClaudeBot

20Disallow: /

22User-agent: Google-Extended

23Disallow: /

25User-agent: GPTBot

26Disallow: /

28User-agent: PerplexityBot

29Disallow: /

31User-agent: PetalBot

32Disallow: /

34User-agent: Scrapy

35Disallow: /

37User-agent: uptimerobot

38Disallow: /

40User-agent: viberbot

41Disallow: /

43User-agent: YaK

44Disallow: /

46User-agent: Yandex

47Disallow: /

49User-agent: Yeti

50Disallow: /

52User-agent: facebookexternalhit

53Allow: *

55User-agent: meta-externalads

56Allow: *

58User-agent: *

59Disallow: /*cursor=

60Disallow: /*fb_comment_id=

61Disallow: /ajax/

62Disallow: /tealium/

63Disallow: /intern/

64Disallow: /internal/

65Disallow: /login/

66Disallow: /oidc/callback/

67Disallow: /*.php

68Disallow: /android/third_party

69Disallow: /settings

71Sitemap: https://www.whatsapp.com/sitemap/www_whatsapp_com_sitemap.xml.gz

What do the bots actually get?

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

History

19 October 2026: first checked.

Questions

Does whatsapp.com block GPTBot?

Yes. whatsapp.com’s robots.txt disallows GPTBot from the whole site (line 26: Disallow: /). GPTBot is OpenAI’s crawler for training data; blocking it doesn’t affect ChatGPT search, which uses OAI-SearchBot. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does whatsapp.com block ClaudeBot?

Yes. whatsapp.com’s robots.txt disallows ClaudeBot from the whole site (line 20: Disallow: /). ClaudeBot is Anthropic’s crawler for training data. Checked 9 November 2026.

Does whatsapp.com block Google-Extended?

Yes. whatsapp.com’s robots.txt disallows Google-Extended from the whole site (line 23: 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 whatsapp.com block PerplexityBot?

Yes. whatsapp.com’s robots.txt disallows PerplexityBot from the whole site (line 29: Disallow: /). PerplexityBot is the crawler that indexes pages for Perplexity’s answers. Checked 9 November 2026.

Can ChatGPT search find whatsapp.com?

Yes. whatsapp.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.