Free tool · AI crawlers

Can AI read your site?

Trytidekeeper.eunytimes.comgithub.com
18 of 24 AI crawlers are kept out of the home pagerobots.txt has 63 groups, there is no llms.txt, and robots.txt names a sitemap.6 let in18 kept outNo llms.txt

Each AI crawler, by who runs it

For the home page. A crawler reads by the group that names it, else by *.

OpenAI

GPTBotAI trainingKept outgptbot · Disallow: /
OAI-SearchBotAI searchKept outoai-searchbot · Disallow: /
ChatGPT-UserFor someone nowKept outchatgpt-user · Disallow: /OpenAI: as someone asked for it, “robots.txt rules may not apply”.

Anthropic

ClaudeBotAI trainingKept outclaudebot · Disallow: /
Claude-SearchBotAI searchKept outclaude-searchbot · Disallow: /
Claude-UserFor someone nowKept outclaude-user · Disallow: /

Perplexity

PerplexityBotAI searchKept outperplexitybot · Disallow: /
Perplexity-UserFor someone nowKept outperplexity-user · Disallow: /

Mistral AI

MistralAI-UserFor someone nowLet in
MistralAI-IndexAI searchLet in
MistralAI-TrainingAI trainingLet in

Meta

Meta-ExternalAgentAI trainingKept outmeta-externalagent · Disallow: /
Meta-ExternalFetcherFor someone nowKept outmeta-externalfetcher · Disallow: /
Meta-WebIndexerAI searchKept outmeta-webindexer · Disallow: /

Amazon

AmazonbotAI trainingLet in

ByteDance

BytespiderAI trainingKept outbytespider · Disallow: /

Common Crawl

CCBotAI trainingKept outccbot · Disallow: /

Cohere

cohere-aiAI trainingKept outcohere-ai · Disallow: /

DuckDuckGo

DuckAssistBotAI searchKept outduckassistbot · Disallow: /

You.com

YouBotAI searchKept outyoubot · Disallow: /

Google

GooglebotSearch engineLet in
Google-Extendedrobots.txt nameKept outgoogle-extended · Disallow: /Crawls nothing itself: says whether what Googlebot reads may be used for training future Gemini models, and grounding in Gemini.

Apple

ApplebotSearch engineLet in
Applebot-Extendedrobots.txt nameKept outapplebot-extended · Disallow: /Crawls nothing itself: says whether what Applebot reads may be used for training Apple's foundation models for its generative AI features.

What robots.txt says

nytimes.com/robots.txt
# New York Times content is made available for your personal, non-commercial
# use subject to our Terms of Service here:
# https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014893428-Terms-of-Service.
# Use of any device, tool, or process designed to data mine or scrape the content
# using automated means is prohibited without prior written permission from
# The New York Times Company.  Prohibited uses include but are not limited to:
# (1) text and data mining activities under Art. 4 of the EU Directive on Copyright in
# the Digital Single Market;
# (2) the development of any software, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI),
# and/or large language models (LLMs);
# (3) creating or providing archived or cached data sets containing our content to others; and/or
# (4) any commercial purposes.
# Contact https://nytlicensing.com/contact/ for assistance.

User-agent: *
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /ads/
Disallow: /adx/bin/
Disallow: /athletic/wp/wp-admin/
Allow: /athletic/wp/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Disallow: /athletic/async-*
Disallow: /athletic/search/*
Allow: /athletic/search/$
Disallow: /athletic/checkout/
Disallow: /athletic/checkout?plan_id*
Allow: /athletic/checkout/$
Disallow: /athletic/checkout2*
Disallow: /athletic/login/
Disallow: /athletic/login?login_source*
Disallow: /athletic/login?ref_page*
Allow: /athletic/login/$
Disallow: /athletic/login2/
Disallow: /athletic/login2?login_source*
Disallow: /athletic/login2?ref_page*
Allow: /athletic/login2/$
Disallow: /athletic/report/
Disallow: /athletic/*/discuss/*
Allow: /athletic/live-blogs/discuss/
Allow: /athletic/nfl/game/discuss/
Disallow: /athletic/register/
Disallow: /athletic/register?welcome_redirect*
Disallow: /athletic/register2/
Disallow: /athletic/register2?welcome_redirect*
Disallow: /athletic/betmgm-redirect*
Disallow: /athletic/cdn-cgi/
Disallow: /athletic/verizon/*
Disallow: /athletic/forgot-password/*
Disallow: /athletic/forgot-password2/*
Disallow: /athletic/amp-social-login*
Disallow: /athletic/track-analytics/
Disallow: /athletic/amp-auth/
Disallow: /athletic/rss-feed/
Disallow: /athletic/*?*rss=1
Disallow: /athletic/global-color-test.php
Disallow: /athletic/global-font-test.php
Disallow: /athletic/graphql*
Disallow: /athletic/api*
Disallow: /athletic/ip*
Disallow: /athletic/call-set-cookie-with-context/*
Disallow: /athletic/get-current-user/
Disallow: /athletic/pv.json
Disallow: /athletic/following-feed-test/*
Disallow: /athletic*/boxscore/*
Disallow: /athletic/feed-test/
Disallow: /athletic*/signed-mp3-redirect-url/*
Disallow: /athletic/embedded-interactive/*
Disallow: /card/panel/
Disallow: /panel/
Disallow: /puzzles/leaderboards/invite/*
Disallow: /svc
Allow: /svc/crosswords
Allow: /svc/games
Allow: /svc/letter-boxed
Allow: /svc/spelling-bee
Allow: /svc/wordle
Allow: /svc/connections
Allow: /svc/sudoku
Allow: /svc/strands
Allow: /svc/pips
Disallow: /video/embedded/*
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /multiproduct/
Disallow: /hd/
Disallow: /inyt/
Disallow: /*?*query=
Disallow: /*.pdf$
Disallow: /*?*login=
Disallow: /*?*campaignId=
Disallow: /*?*mcubz=
Disallow: /*?*smprod=
Disallow: /*?*ProfileID=
Disallow: /*?*ListingID=
Disallow: /*?*campaign_id=
Disallow: /*?*hybrid=
Disallow: /*?*entry=
Disallow: /*?*embed=
Disallow: /*?ls=
Disallow: /*?*&ls=
Disallow: /v1/initialize*
Disallow: /v1/rgstr*
Disallow: /wirecutter/wp-admin/
Disallow: /wirecutter/*.zip$
Disallow: /wirecutter/*.csv$
Disallow: /wirecutter/deals/beta
Disallow: /wirecutter/data-requests
Disallow: /wirecutter/search
Disallow: /wirecutter/*?s=
Disallow: /wirecutter/*&xid=
Disallow: /wirecutter/*?q=
Disallow: /wirecutter/*?l=
Disallow: /wirecutter/*?merchant=
Disallow: /wirecutter/out/
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /subscription/*?*source=
Disallow: /subscription/*?*onboarded=
Disallow: /*?*smid=
Disallow: /*?*partner=
Disallow: /*?*utm_source=
Allow: /wirecutter/*?*utm_source=
Allow: /ads/public/
Allow: /svc/news/v3/all/pshb.rss
Allow: /wirecutter/reviews/*?*utm_source=
Allow: /wirecutter/blog/*?

Not every crawler keeps robots.txt. On your own site, tidekeeper sees who read what anyway.

To keep the AI trainers out

Add to robots.txt
# Training only: search and assistants still read
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: ClaudeBot
User-agent: MistralAI-Training
User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
User-agent: Amazonbot
User-agent: Bytespider
User-agent: CCBot
User-agent: cohere-ai
User-agent: Google-Extended
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /

Lines for the crawlers that read for training, as tidekeeper knows them. Search engines and the assistants that read for someone, now, are left as they are.

The page, as a crawler that runs no script gets it

2001701.0 KB of HTML3851 words959 links
Title
The New York Times - Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos
First heading
New York Times - Top Stories
Description
Live news, investigations, opinion, photos and video by the journalists of The New York Times from more than 150 countries around the world. Subscribe for coverage of U.S. and international news, politics, business, technology, science, health, arts, sports and more.
The first words
New York Times - Top Stories Live LIVE Midterm Elections Nov. 6, 2026, 7:07 p.m. ET White House Shake-Up Nov. 6, 2026, 6:53 p.m. ET Top Stories LIVE Nov. 6, 2026, 6:53 p.m. ET Trump Elevates Stephen Miller, a Fiery

Then, which of them actually came

robots.txt says who may read. tidekeeper's Bots and AI says who did: each crawler by name, the pages it read, whether its address was its owner's, and the readers each assistant sent after.

Bots and AI crawlers →

How it works

  1. Give a domainIts robots.txt, its llms.txt and the page are fetched once.
  2. See each crawlerBy company: let in or kept out, and by which rule.
  3. Keep out what you chooseCopy the lines that keep the crawlers that train out, and leave search and assistants be.

Questions

How do I block GPTBot?

Put “User-agent: GPTBot” and “Disallow: /” in your robots.txt. OpenAI's search reads as OAI-SearchBot, by its own name, so ChatGPT can still find your pages.

What is Google-Extended?

A name in robots.txt, not a crawler: Googlebot does the reading, and Google-Extended says whether what it reads may be used for Gemini and Vertex AI.

Does blocking AI crawlers change my Google ranking?

Keeping Google-Extended out does not change Google Search, Google says: Googlebot reads for search under its own name.

What is llms.txt?

A Markdown file at /llms.txt that says what a site is and where its pages are as text, for AI agents. It is a proposal, read by some agents.

Do crawlers keep robots.txt?

The ones that say so do; not every crawler does. On your own site, tidekeeper sees which ones came, and what they read.