The Walled Web Newsletter

AI bots we track / AI assistants

Who blocks Google-Agent?

Google-Agent is Google's AI assistant bot. It visits a page the moment a person asks an AI to. Google says it generally ignores robots.txt: "Because the fetch was requested by a user, these fetchers generally ignore robots.txt rules." Google is testing Web Bot Auth signatures for it. Source

14of 159
sites block it from the whole site
1of 14
of those name it in robots.txt
1of 159
block it from part of the site
1of 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 Google-Agent, 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.

Google-Agent 8%
0%5%10%15%20%2023202420252026Google-Agent 8%0%5%10%15%20%'23'24'25'26
Table view
MonthGoogle-AgentSites 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 20254%143
May 20255%143
Jun 20255%143
Jul 20255%143
Aug 20254%143
Sep 20254%143
Oct 20254%143
Nov 20254%143
Dec 20255%143
Jan 20264%143
Feb 20265%143
Mar 20265%143
Apr 20265%143
May 20266%143
Jun 20268%143
Jul 20268%143
Aug 20268%143
Sep 20268%143
Oct 20268%143

Blocked by name (1)

USA Today

Blocked by the general rules for all crawlers (13)

InstacartYelpNextdoorThe Wall Street JournalReutersRedditXFacebookInstagramLinkedInPinterestThreadsIMDb

Blocked from part of the site (1)

Quora

Named and allowed (1)

Indeed

Recent changes

  • May to Sep 2026
    IMDb Now blocked: ClaudeBot, Applebot-Extended, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, MistralAI-Training, AI2Bot, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and 9 more.
    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
  • Apr to Jun 2026
    USA Today Now blocked: Amzn-SearchBot, Meta-WebIndexer, Perplexity-User, Google-Agent and Amzn-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 to May 2026
    Pinterest Now blocked: MistralAI-Training, AI2Bot, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, Amazonbot, Amzn-SearchBot, 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
  • 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
  • May 2025
    Reddit Now blocked: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, MistralAI-Training and 17 more.
    More blocking
  • Sep 2024 to May 2025
    Threads Now blocked: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, MistralAI-Training and 17 more.
    More blocking
  • Mar 2025
    Instacart Now blocked: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, MistralAI-Training and 14 more.
    More blocking
  • Sep 2024
    Ticketmaster Now allowed: ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Meta-ExternalAgent, Bytespider, MistralAI-Training, AI2Bot and 16 more.
    Less blocking