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Financial Times
ft.comBlocks some
Its robots.txt (the public rules file for bots) treats AI bots differently from each other. It blocks 9 of the 24 AI bots we track from the whole site, including ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot and Meta-ExternalAgent. GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-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
6 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
1 of 8 blocked
Blocking these usually means the site stops showing up as a source in AI answers.
AI assistants Some blocked
2 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 | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| ClaudeBotAnthropic | Blocked | Named, line 72 | Says yes |
| Google-ExtendedGoogle · opt-out name, not a bot | Blocked | Named, line 35 | Says yes |
| Applebot-ExtendedApple · opt-out name, not a bot | Blocked | Named, line 81 | Says yes |
| CCBotCommon Crawl | Blocked | Named, line 32 | Says yes |
| Meta-ExternalAgentMeta | Blocked | Named, line 84 | Suggests yes |
| BytespiderByteDance | Blocked | Named, line 51 | 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 42 | Unknown |
| Bots for AI search · Some blocked | |||
| OAI-SearchBotOpenAI | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| Claude-SearchBotAnthropic | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| PerplexityBotPerplexity | Blocked | Named, line 63 | Suggests yes |
| AmazonbotAmazon | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | 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 | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| Perplexity-UserPerplexity | Blocked | Named, line 66 | Says it mostly ignores it |
| Google-AgentGoogle | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says it mostly ignores it |
| Meta-ExternalFetcherMeta | Blocked | Named, line 87 | 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.
| GoogleOther | Blocked | line 39 | Documented by its operator |
| omgili | Blocked | line 45 | Not in our verified list |
| omgilibot | Blocked | line 48 | Not in our verified list |
| cohere-ai | Blocked | line 54 | Not in our verified list |
| Claude-Web | Blocked | line 69 | Not in our verified list |
| Diffbot | Blocked | line 75 | Documented by its operator |
| FacebookBot | Blocked | line 78 | 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)
# All use of FT content is subject to the Terms & Conditions and# Copyright Policy set out on FT.com # We expressly prohibit any use of our content or data for any# machine learning or artificial intelligence purposes, including# the training or development of AI technologies or machine learning# language models.## For any licensing queries please contact content.licensing@ft.com Sitemap: https://www.ft.com/sitemaps/index.xml User-agent: *Disallow: /__Disallow: /_fs-chDisallow: /article/e63d8640-eeb3-4473-b0ad-aa6aec16d9feDisallow: /buy/Disallow: /cancel/Disallow: /join/Disallow: /loginDisallow: /myftDisallow: /offline/Disallow: /page-resourcesDisallow: /preferences/manage-cookiesDisallow: /register/Disallow: /searchDisallow: /signupAllow: /__origami/Allow: /__assets/Crawl-Delay: 1… 30 lines not about AI bots User-agent: CCBotDisallow: / User-agent: Google-ExtendedDisallow: /Allow: /*?syn-25a6b1a6=1 User-agent: GoogleOtherDisallow: / User-agent: anthropic-aiDisallow: / User-agent: omgiliDisallow: / User-agent: omgilibotDisallow: / User-agent: BytespiderDisallow: / User-agent: cohere-aiDisallow: / User-agent: magpie-crawlerDisallow: / User-agent: NewsNowDisallow: /… 5 lines not about AI bots User-agent: PerplexityBotDisallow: / User-agent: Perplexity-UserDisallow: / User-agent: Claude-WebDisallow: / User-agent: ClaudeBotDisallow: / User-agent: DiffbotDisallow: / User-agent: FacebookBotDisallow: / User-agent: Applebot-ExtendedDisallow: / User-agent: meta-externalagentDisallow: / User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcherDisallow: /
Notes about AI written in the file: "machine learning or artificial intelligence purposes, including" · "the training or development of AI technologies or machine learning"
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://www.ft.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
46 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.
- May 2025More blocking Now blocked: Perplexity-User and Meta-ExternalFetcher.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Apr 2025 and 1 May 2025. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
+ User-agent: GoogleOther+ Disallow: /+User-agent: anthropic-ai…+ User-agent: Perplexity-User+ Disallow: /+User-agent: Claude-Web…+ User-agent: Diffbot+ Disallow: /+User-agent: FacebookBot…+ User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher+ Disallow: /+ - Nov 2024
- Aug 2024Mixed Now blocked: ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Bytespider, anthropic-ai and PerplexityBot. Now allowed: GPTBot.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Jul 2024 and 1 Aug 2024. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
- # all use of FT content is subject to the Terms & Conditions and Copyright Policy set out on FT.com+ # All use of FT content is subject to the Terms & Conditions and+ # Copyright Policy set out on FT.com++ # We expressly prohibit any use of our content or data for any+ # machine learning or artificial intelligence purposes, including+ # the training or development of AI technologies or machine learning+ # language models.+ #+ # For any licensing queries please contact content.licensing@ft.com+Sitemap: https://www.ft.com/sitemaps/index.xml…- User-agent: GPTBot+ User-agent: CCBotDisallow: /+ User-agent: Google-Extended+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: anthropic-ai+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: omgili+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: omgilibot+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: Bytespider+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: cohere-ai+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: magpie-crawler+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: NewsNow+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: PerplexityBot+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: Claude-Web+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: ClaudeBot+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: FacebookBot+ Disallow: /++ User-agent: Applebot-Extended+ Disallow: /+ - Oct 2023More blocking Now blocked: GPTBot.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Sep 2023 and 1 Oct 2023. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
Disallow: /preferences/cookies- Allow: /myft/list/+ Disallow: /loginAllow: /__origami/Allow: /__assets/+ Crawl-Delay: 1+ User-agent: GPTBot+ Disallow: /+
Reports from readers
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