AI crawler access · thesun.co.uk
Does thesun.co.uk block GPTBot and other AI crawlers?
GPTBot: partially blockedAs of 2026-10-02, the robots.txt of thesun.co.uk blocks 25 of 29 AI crawlers on the home page and partially blocks 4 more: GPTBot is partially blocked, ClaudeBot is blocked and PerplexityBot is blocked.
- Policy: Blocks some AI search (At least one AI search or assistant crawler blocked)
- AI search access: 18% 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://thesun.co.uk/robots.txt - llms.txt: no
- Content-Signal: none
- Category: Other · domain: .uk (United Kingdom) · popularity band: Tranco 1001-3000
- Last checked: (daily)
All 29 AI crawlers on thesun.co.uk
Status for the home page (/) under thesun.co.uk's robots.txt. Partially blocked = home page allowed, some paths disallowed.
| Crawler | Operator | robots.txt |
|---|---|---|
| Training crawlers | ||
| GPTBot | OpenAI | partial |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | blocked |
| Google-Extended | blocked | |
| Applebot-Extended | Apple | blocked |
| Meta-ExternalAgent | Meta | blocked |
| Amazonbot | Amazon | blocked |
| MistralAI-Training | Mistral | blocked |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | blocked |
| Bytespider | ByteDance | blocked |
| cohere-ai | Cohere | blocked |
| AI search crawlers | ||
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | partial |
| Claude-SearchBot | Anthropic | blocked |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | blocked |
| Google-CloudVertexBot | blocked | |
| Applebot | Apple | partial |
| meta-webindexer | Meta | blocked |
| Amzn-SearchBot | Amazon | blocked |
| DuckAssistBot | DuckDuckGo | blocked |
| MistralAI-Index | Mistral | blocked |
| User-triggered fetch crawlers | ||
| ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | partial |
| Claude-User | Anthropic | blocked |
| Perplexity-User | Perplexity | blocked |
| Google-GeminiNotebook | blocked | |
| Google-Agent | blocked | |
| meta-externalfetcher | Meta | blocked |
| Amzn-User | Amazon | blocked |
| MistralAI-User | Mistral | blocked |
| Ads review crawlers | ||
| OAI-AdsBot | OpenAI | blocked |
| meta-externalads | Meta | blocked |
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 .uk (United Kingdom) domains: 20% of 90 readable sites block GPTBot and 8.9% serve an llms.txt. All .uk (United Kingdom) sites →
History
No change recorded since daily tracking started on 2026-10-02. We re-check thesun.co.uk every day; a change in its AI crawler rules shows up here and on the index page.
FAQ
- Does thesun.co.uk block GPTBot?
- Partly. As of 2026-10-02, https://thesun.co.uk/robots.txt allows GPTBot (OpenAI's AI training crawler) on the home page but disallows some paths.
- Does thesun.co.uk block ClaudeBot?
- Yes. As of 2026-10-02, https://thesun.co.uk/robots.txt disallows the home page for ClaudeBot, Anthropic's AI training crawler.
- Does thesun.co.uk block PerplexityBot?
- Yes. As of 2026-10-02, https://thesun.co.uk/robots.txt disallows the home page for PerplexityBot, Perplexity's AI search crawler.
- Can ChatGPT search (OAI-SearchBot) crawl thesun.co.uk?
- Partly. As of 2026-10-02, https://thesun.co.uk/robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI's AI search crawler) on the home page but disallows some paths.
- Does thesun.co.uk block Google-Extended (Gemini training)?
- Yes. As of 2026-10-02, https://thesun.co.uk/robots.txt disallows the home page for Google-Extended, Google's AI training crawler.
- Does thesun.co.uk have an llms.txt file?
- No. As of 2026-10-02, thesun.co.uk does not serve a plain-text /llms.txt file.
- How can I check thesun.co.uk 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.
Similar .uk (United Kingdom) sites
- telegraph.co.uk Blocks some AI search
- service.gov.uk No robots.txt
- independent.co.uk Open
- rightmove.co.uk Blocks training only
- cam.ac.uk Open
- ico.org.uk Open
- www.nhs.uk Open
- mirror.co.uk Blocks some AI search
- guardian.co.uk Blocks some AI search
- express.co.uk Blocks some AI search
- thetimes.co.uk Blocks some AI search
- metro.co.uk Blocks some AI search
Which .uk (United Kingdom) sites block GPTBot · What is thesun.co.uk built with? (Tech Stack Index)