The Walled Web Newsletter

AI bots we track / AI search

Who blocks DuckAssistBot?

DuckAssistBot is DuckDuckGo's bot for AI search. Blocking it usually means the site stops showing up as a source in that company's AI answers. DuckDuckGo says it obeys robots.txt: Fetches pages for AI-assisted answers; "not used in any way to train AI models." Source

22of 159
sites block it from the whole site
12of 22
of those name it in robots.txt
1of 159
block it from part of the site
4of 159
name it and let it in

Out of the 159 tracked sites whose robots.txt we could read. Test any other name.

Share of sites blocking DuckAssistBot, Jan 2023 to now

The same 143 sites in every month. Before this bot existed, sites that block every bot they don't name already kept it out.

DuckAssistBot 13%
0%5%10%15%20%2023202420252026DuckAssistBot 13%0%5%10%15%20%'23'24'25'26
Table view
MonthDuckAssistBotSites with a file
Jan 20234%143
Feb 20234%143
Mar 20234%143
Apr 20234%143
May 20234%143
Jun 20234%143
Jul 20234%143
Aug 20234%143
Sep 20234%143
Oct 20234%143
Nov 20234%143
Dec 20234%143
Jan 20244%143
Feb 20244%143
Mar 20244%143
Apr 20245%143
May 20244%143
Jun 20244%143
Jul 20244%143
Aug 20244%143
Sep 20243%143
Oct 20243%143
Nov 20243%143
Dec 20244%143
Jan 20253%143
Feb 20253%143
Mar 20254%143
Apr 20255%143
May 20256%143
Jun 20256%143
Jul 20258%143
Aug 20256%143
Sep 20258%143
Oct 202510%143
Nov 202510%143
Dec 202510%143
Jan 202610%143
Feb 202610%143
Mar 202610%143
Apr 202610%143
May 202610%143
Jun 202613%143
Jul 202613%143
Aug 202614%143
Sep 202613%143
Oct 202613%143

Blocked by name (12)

AmazonThe New York TimesThe GuardianCNNBloombergThe New YorkerUSA TodayPoliticoThe VergeWIREDLinkedInTikTok

Blocked by the general rules for all crawlers (10)

InstacartYelpNextdoorThe Wall Street JournalReutersRedditXFacebookInstagramThreads

Blocked from part of the site (1)

Quora

Named and allowed (4)

IndeedThe AtlanticPinterestIMDb

Recent changes

  • Jun 2026
    Bloomberg Now blocked: ClaudeBot, Applebot-Extended, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, DuckAssistBot, Claude-User and Meta-ExternalFetcher.
    More blocking
  • Apr to Jun 2026
    Reuters Now blocked: GPTBot, MistralAI-Training, Amazonbot, Amzn-SearchBot, DuckAssistBot, MistralAI-Index, Claude-User, Perplexity-User and 1 more.
    More blocking
  • Jun 2026
    The Verge Now blocked: Meta-ExternalAgent, AI2Bot, Claude-SearchBot, DuckAssistBot, Claude-User, Perplexity-User, Meta-ExternalFetcher and MistralAI-User.
    More blocking
  • Jun 2026
    The Wall Street Journal Now blocked: MistralAI-Training, AI2Bot, Claude-SearchBot, Amazonbot, Amzn-SearchBot, DuckAssistBot, MistralAI-Index, Meta-WebIndexer and 5 more.
    More blocking
  • Feb 2026
    Reddit Now blocked: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, MistralAI-Training and 17 more.
    More blocking
  • Oct 2025
    The New Yorker Now blocked: ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, DuckAssistBot, Meta-WebIndexer, Claude-User, Perplexity-User, Meta-ExternalFetcher and MistralAI-User. Now allowed: anthropic-ai.
    Mixed
  • Oct 2025
    TikTok Now blocked: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Meta-ExternalAgent, AI2Bot, anthropic-ai and 8 more.
    More blocking
  • Oct 2025
    WIRED Now blocked: ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, DuckAssistBot, Meta-WebIndexer, Claude-User, Perplexity-User, Meta-ExternalFetcher and MistralAI-User. Now allowed: anthropic-ai.
    Mixed
  • Jun to Sep 2025
    Amazon Now blocked: ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, AI2Bot, DuckAssistBot and MistralAI-User.
    More blocking
  • Sep 2025
    Politico Now blocked: GPTBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, AI2Bot, anthropic-ai, OAI-SearchBot and 9 more.
    More blocking
  • Jul to Sep 2025
    Reddit Now partly blocked: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, MistralAI-Training and 17 more.
    Less blocking
  • Aug 2025
    OpenTable Now blocked: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, MistralAI-Training and 10 more.
    More blocking