AI crawler access · espn.com
Does espn.com block GPTBot and other AI crawlers?
GPTBot: blockedAs of 2026-10-01, the robots.txt of espn.com blocks 5 of 29 AI crawlers on the home page: GPTBot is blocked, ClaudeBot is allowed and PerplexityBot is allowed.
- Policy: Blocks some AI search (At least one AI search or assistant crawler blocked)
- AI search access: 94% of the AI search and assistant crawlers we track may fetch the home page (these decide whether AI answers can cite the site).
- robots.txt: found at
https://espn.com/robots.txt - llms.txt: no
- Content-Signal: none
- Category: News & media · popularity band: Tranco 101-500
- Last checked: (daily)
All 29 AI crawlers on espn.com
Status for the home page (/) under espn.com's robots.txt. Partially blocked = home page allowed, some paths disallowed.
| Crawler | Operator | robots.txt |
|---|---|---|
| Training crawlers | ||
| GPTBot | OpenAI | blocked |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | allowed |
| Google-Extended | blocked | |
| Applebot-Extended | Apple | allowed |
| Meta-ExternalAgent | Meta | allowed |
| Amazonbot | Amazon | allowed |
| MistralAI-Training | Mistral | allowed |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | blocked |
| Bytespider | ByteDance | blocked |
| cohere-ai | Cohere | allowed |
| AI search crawlers | ||
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | allowed |
| Claude-SearchBot | Anthropic | allowed |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | allowed |
| Google-CloudVertexBot | allowed | |
| Applebot | Apple | allowed |
| meta-webindexer | Meta | allowed |
| Amzn-SearchBot | Amazon | allowed |
| DuckAssistBot | DuckDuckGo | allowed |
| MistralAI-Index | Mistral | allowed |
| User-triggered fetch crawlers | ||
| ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | blocked |
| Claude-User | Anthropic | allowed |
| Perplexity-User | Perplexity | allowed |
| Google-GeminiNotebook | allowed | |
| Google-Agent | allowed | |
| meta-externalfetcher | Meta | allowed |
| Amzn-User | Amazon | allowed |
| MistralAI-User | Mistral | allowed |
| Ads review crawlers | ||
| OAI-AdsBot | OpenAI | allowed |
| meta-externalads | Meta | allowed |
Compared with other news & media sites in the index: 43.7% of them block GPTBot and 49.2% block ClaudeBot (n=126). Across all 853 readable sites: 17% block GPTBot. All news & media sites →
History
No change in the latest daily run. We re-check espn.com every day; changes show up here and on the index page.
FAQ
- Does espn.com block GPTBot?
- Yes. As of 2026-10-01, https://espn.com/robots.txt disallows the home page for GPTBot, OpenAI's AI training crawler.
- Does espn.com block ClaudeBot?
- No. As of 2026-10-01, https://espn.com/robots.txt allows ClaudeBot, Anthropic's AI training crawler, on the home page.
- Does espn.com block PerplexityBot?
- No. As of 2026-10-01, https://espn.com/robots.txt allows PerplexityBot, Perplexity's AI search crawler, on the home page.
- Can ChatGPT search (OAI-SearchBot) crawl espn.com?
- No. As of 2026-10-01, https://espn.com/robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot, OpenAI's AI search crawler, on the home page.
- Does espn.com block Google-Extended (Gemini training)?
- Yes. As of 2026-10-01, https://espn.com/robots.txt disallows the home page for Google-Extended, Google's AI training crawler.
- Does espn.com have an llms.txt file?
- No. As of 2026-10-01, espn.com does not serve a plain-text /llms.txt file.
- How can I check espn.com or my own site again?
- Use the free AI crawler checker at tools.yukai.uk/free/ai-crawler-checker (no sign-up). To check many sites and get alerts when rules change, use the AI Crawler Access Checker on Apify.
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