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Associated Press
apnews.comBlocks some
Its robots.txt (the public rules file for bots) treats AI bots differently from each other. It blocks 8 of the 24 AI bots we track from the whole site, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Applebot-Extended, CCBot and Claude-SearchBot. Google-Extended, Meta-ExternalAgent, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User and 1 more can reach most of it. The homepage also showed our bot, which says who it is, a Cloudflare challenge page instead of the site.
Last checked 19 Oct 2026. Rules file read today. Everything we checked · History
Bots that train AI Some blocked
4 of 9 blocked
Blocking these keeps the site out of future AI training. It does not stop AI from reading the site to answer questions.
Bots for AI search Some blocked
3 of 8 blocked
Blocking these usually means the site stops showing up as a source in AI answers.
AI assistants Some blocked
1 of 7 blocked
5 of these 7 companies say their assistants may ignore robots.txt.
Bot by bot
| AI bot | Allowed? | Where the rule is | Company says it follows robots.txt? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bots that train AI · Some blocked | |||
| GPTBotOpenAI | Blocked | Named, line 35 | Says yes |
| ClaudeBotAnthropic | Blocked | Named, line 41 | Says yes |
| Google-ExtendedGoogle · opt-out name, not a bot | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| Applebot-ExtendedApple · opt-out name, not a bot | Blocked | Named, line 56 | Says yes |
| CCBotCommon Crawl | Blocked | Named, line 32 | Says yes |
| Meta-ExternalAgentMeta | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Suggests yes |
| BytespiderByteDance | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | No statement found |
| MistralAI-TrainingMistral AI | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| AI2BotAllen Institute for AI | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Does not say |
| anthropic-aiAnthropic (legacy) · old name | Blocked | Named, line 38 | Unknown |
| Bots for AI search · Some blocked | |||
| OAI-SearchBotOpenAI | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| Claude-SearchBotAnthropic | Blocked | Named, line 68 | Says yes |
| PerplexityBotPerplexity | Blocked | Named, line 50 | Suggests yes |
| AmazonbotAmazon | Blocked | Named, line 53 | Says yes |
| Amzn-SearchBotAmazon | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| DuckAssistBotDuckDuckGo | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| MistralAI-IndexMistral AI | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Suggests yes |
| Meta-WebIndexerMeta | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Suggests yes |
| AI assistants · Some blocked | |||
| ChatGPT-UserOpenAI | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says not always |
| Claude-UserAnthropic | Blocked | Named, line 65 | Says yes |
| Perplexity-UserPerplexity | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says it mostly ignores it |
| Google-AgentGoogle | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says it mostly ignores it |
| Meta-ExternalFetcherMeta | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says not always |
| Amzn-UserAmazon | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says not always |
| MistralAI-UserMistral AI | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Suggests yes |
| For comparison | |||
| GooglebotRegular search engine, for comparison | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | |
| BingbotRegular search engine, for comparison | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | |
Other AI names in this file
Names in this file that are not among the 24 bots we track. A rule for a name no real bot uses blocks nothing, but it shows which names the site has added.
| Claude-Web | Blocked | line 44 | Not in our verified list |
| cohere-ai | Blocked | line 47 | Not in our verified list |
| Timpibot | Blocked | line 62 | Not in our verified list |
We test two pages: the homepage, and a made-up page that stands in for the rest of the site. "Blocked" means both are off limits. "Some pages blocked" means only one is. Rules for search results, carts, checkout and accounts don't change these labels, because almost every site keeps all bots out of those pages.
The rules file (robots.txt)
User-Agent: *Disallow: *_ptid=*Disallow: *?prx_t=*Disallow: /zephr*Disallow: /blaize*Disallow: /search?q=*Disallow: /*.rssDisallow: /buyline-shopping/*Disallow: /buyline-personal-finance/*Disallow: *?jw_startDisallow: *&jw_startDisallow: /gallery/Disallow: /config/newrelic/prodDisallow: /parsely-api-endpointDisallow: /apdata/Disallow: /article/border-immigration-election-2182fec11fa008ec96c4202e5656d19eDisallow: /api/v2/feed/Disallow: /press-release/*Disallow: /*/widgets/Disallow: /*/widget/Disallow: /*/scripts/ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/ap-sitemap.xmlSitemap: https://apnews.com/news-sitemap-content.xmlSitemap: https://apnews.com/hubs-sitemap-content.xmlSitemap: https://apnews.com/video-sitemap.xmlSitemap: https://apnews.com/author-sitemap-content.xmlSitemap: https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/sitemap-index.xml # Disallow Rules… 30 lines not about AI bots User-agent: CCBotDisallow: / User-agent: GPTBotDisallow: / User-agent: anthropic-aiDisallow: / User-agent: ClaudeBotDisallow: / User-agent: Claude-WebDisallow: / User-agent: cohere-aiDisallow: / User-agent: PerplexityBotDisallow: / User-agent: AmazonbotDisallow: / User-agent: Applebot-ExtendedDisallow: / User-agent: BytedanceDisallow: /… 2 lines not about AI bots User-agent: TimpibotDisallow: / User-agent: Claude-UserDisallow: / User-agent: Claude-SearchBotDisallow: /
Everything else we checked
| Front door | Human check The homepage showed our bot, which says who it is, a Cloudflare challenge page instead of the site (HTTP 403).GET https://apnews.com/ as WalledWebBot, from a residential connection in the United States |
|---|---|
| Page tags | Homepage not read. |
| Anti-bot software | Served through Cloudflare. The homepage set a Cloudflare Bot Management cookie (__cf_bm), which anti-bot software uses.From response headers and cookie names only. A cookie shows the product is there, not how it is set up. |
| Readable by AI | Homepage not read.Homepage only. Useful for site owners; not part of the result. |
| Terms of Service | No Terms of Service page found. |
| Not found | No llms.txt, ai.txt, tdmrep.json, Content-Signal or Content-Usage lines or licensing signals (RSL License, HTTP 402). |
History
47 versions on record since 1 Jan 2023
One square per month, from Internet Archive copies and our own daily checks. Dark: blocked. Gray: some blocked. Light: allowed. Striped: no copy that month.
- Aug 2025More blocking Now blocked: Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Jul 2025 and 1 Aug 2025. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
Disallow: *?prx_t=*- Disallow: /press-release/*- Disallow: /blaize*Disallow: /zephr*+ Disallow: /blaize*Disallow: /search?q=*…Disallow: /buyline-personal-finance/*+ Disallow: *?jw_start+ Disallow: *&jw_start+ Disallow: */config/newrelic/prod*…Disallow: /++ User-agent: Claude-User+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: Claude-SearchBot+ Disallow: / - May 2025More blocking Now blocked: Applebot-Extended.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Apr 2025 and 1 May 2025. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
+ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/ap-sitemap.xml+ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/news-sitemap-content.xml+ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/hubs-sitemap-content.xml+ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/video-sitemap.xml++ # Disallow Rules+User-agent: CCBot…- Sitemap: https://apnews.com/ap-sitemap.xml- Sitemap: https://apnews.com/news-sitemap.xml- Sitemap: https://apnews.com/video-sitemap.xml-- # Disallow RulesUser-agent: anthropic-ai…- User-agent: Applebot+ User-agent: Applebot-ExtendedDisallow: /…Disallow: /++ User-agent: Timpibot+ Disallow: / - Dec 2024More blocking Now blocked: Amazonbot.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Nov 2024 and 1 Dec 2024. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
Disallow: /press-release/*- Disallow: /*blaize- Disallow: /*zephr+ Disallow: /blaize*+ Disallow: /zephr*+ Disallow: /search?q=*+ Disallow: /*.rss+ Disallow: /buyline-shopping/*+ Disallow: /buyline-personal-finance/*…Sitemap: https://apnews.com/ap-sitemap.xml- Sitemap: https://apnews.com/news-sitemap-content.xml+ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/news-sitemap.xmlSitemap: https://apnews.com/video-sitemap.xml- Sitemap: https://apnews.com/buyline-personal-finance/sitemap.xml- Sitemap: https://apnews.com/buyline-shopping/sitemap.xml…Disallow: /++ User-agent: Amazonbot+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: Applebot+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: Bytedance+ Disallow: / - May 2024More blocking Now blocked: ClaudeBot, anthropic-ai and PerplexityBot.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Apr 2024 and 1 May 2024. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
Disallow: /press-release/*+ Disallow: /*blaize+ Disallow: /*zephr…Sitemap: https://apnews.com/video-sitemap.xml+ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/buyline-personal-finance/sitemap.xml+ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/buyline-shopping/sitemap.xml++ # Disallow Rules+ User-agent: anthropic-ai+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: ClaudeBot+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: Claude-Web+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: cohere-ai+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: PerplexityBot+ Disallow: / - Nov 2023More blocking Now blocked: GPTBot and CCBot.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Oct 2023 and 1 Nov 2023. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
Disallow:-Disallow: *_ptid=*…- Sitemap: https://apnews.com/sitemap/sitemap_index.xml- Sitemap: https://apnews.com/sitemap/google-news-sitemap/sitemap_index.xml+ User-agent: CCBot+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: GPTBot+ Disallow: /++ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/ap-sitemap.xml+ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/news-sitemap-content.xml+ Sitemap: https://apnews.com/video-sitemap.xml
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