AI crawler access · lwn.net
Does lwn.net block GPTBot and other AI crawlers?
GPTBot: blockedAs of 2026-10-02, the robots.txt of lwn.net blocks 3 of 29 AI crawlers on the home page: GPTBot is blocked, ClaudeBot is blocked and PerplexityBot is allowed.
- Policy: Blocks training only (Training crawlers blocked, AI search and assistant crawlers allowed)
- AI search access: 100% 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://lwn.net/robots.txt - llms.txt: no
- Content-Signal: none
- Category: Other · domain: .net · popularity band: Tranco 3000+
- Last checked: (daily)
All 29 AI crawlers on lwn.net
Status for the home page (/) under lwn.net's robots.txt. Partially blocked = home page allowed, some paths disallowed.
| Crawler | Operator | robots.txt |
|---|---|---|
| Training crawlers | ||
| GPTBot | OpenAI | blocked |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | blocked |
| Google-Extended | allowed | |
| Applebot-Extended | Apple | allowed |
| Meta-ExternalAgent | Meta | blocked |
| Amazonbot | Amazon | allowed |
| MistralAI-Training | Mistral | allowed |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | allowed |
| Bytespider | ByteDance | allowed |
| 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 | allowed |
| 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 other sites in the index: 11.6% of them block GPTBot and 10.4% block ClaudeBot (n=6693). Across all 8,366 readable sites: 12% block GPTBot. All other sites →
On .net domains: 13.4% of 337 readable sites block GPTBot and 9.2% serve an llms.txt. All .net sites →
History
No change recorded since daily tracking started on 2026-10-02. We re-check lwn.net every day; a change in its AI crawler rules shows up here and on the index page.
FAQ
- Does lwn.net block GPTBot?
- Yes. As of 2026-10-02, https://lwn.net/robots.txt disallows the home page for GPTBot, OpenAI's AI training crawler.
- Does lwn.net block ClaudeBot?
- Yes. As of 2026-10-02, https://lwn.net/robots.txt disallows the home page for ClaudeBot, Anthropic's AI training crawler.
- Does lwn.net block PerplexityBot?
- No. As of 2026-10-02, https://lwn.net/robots.txt allows PerplexityBot, Perplexity's AI search crawler, on the home page.
- Can ChatGPT search (OAI-SearchBot) crawl lwn.net?
- No. As of 2026-10-02, https://lwn.net/robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot, OpenAI's AI search crawler, on the home page.
- Does lwn.net block Google-Extended (Gemini training)?
- No. As of 2026-10-02, https://lwn.net/robots.txt allows Google-Extended, Google's AI training crawler, on the home page.
- Does lwn.net have an llms.txt file?
- No. As of 2026-10-02, lwn.net does not serve a plain-text /llms.txt file.
- How can I check lwn.net 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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