All sites / Retail and marketplaces
Macy's
macys.comBlocks some
Its robots.txt (the public rules file for bots) mentions ClaudeBot, but still lets all 12 major AI bots into the site. (We used the Internet Archive's copy from 3 Oct 2026, because the site would not give our bot its robots.txt: HTTP 403.) But the homepage turned our bot, which says who it is, away (HTTP 403). The written rules say come in; the front door disagrees.
Last checked 19 Oct 2026. Rules file from the Internet Archive copy of 3 Oct 2026. Everything we checked · History
Bots that train AI Allowed
0 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 Allowed
0 of 8 blocked
Blocking these usually means the site stops showing up as a source in AI answers.
AI assistants Allowed
0 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 · Allowed | |||
| GPTBotOpenAI | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| ClaudeBotAnthropic | Allowed | Named, line 85 | 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 | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| CCBotCommon Crawl | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | 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 | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Unknown |
| Bots for AI search · Allowed | |||
| 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 | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | 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 · Allowed | |||
| 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 | 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 | |
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: AdsBot-GoogleDisallow: User-agent: adidxbotDisallow: User-agent: *Disallow: /compareDisallow: /registry/wedding/compareDisallow: /catalog/product/zoom.jspDisallow: /search*Disallow: /shop/search*Disallow: /shop/registry/wedding/search*Disallow: *natuzzi*Disallow: *Natuzzi*Disallow: /bag/add*Disallow: /bag/atbpage*Disallow: /shop/feedback*Disallow: /buy/*Disallow: /my/bag*Disallow: /*|*Disallow: /*%7C*Disallow: /*,*,*/*,*,*Disallow: /shop/b/*/*,*/*,*Disallow: *nocrawl*Disallow: *?ss=trueDisallow: /shop/featured/*/*Disallow: /shop/sports-fan-shop/*/*,*/*,*Disallow: /shop/similar-productsDisallow: */Sortby/*Disallow: *Price_discount_rangeDisallow: *Shipping_methodDisallow: *Price/*Disallow: *Upc_bops_purchasableDisallow: *CustratingsDisallow: *ProductsperpageDisallow: /shop/all/*Disallow: *ids=Disallow: /sdp/rto/request/recommendationsDisallow: /sitemonetization/Disallow: /userEventsConsumer/*Disallow: /EventsWar/*Disallow: /reviews/myReviews*Disallow: /catalog*Disallow: /pricingpolicy.ognc*Disallow: /account-xapi/*Disallow: /nosessioncookie.jspDisallow: /cms/slp/2/*Disallow: /wgl/*Disallow: /v1/*Disallow: /campaign/affiliate*Disallow: /regsvc/*Disallow: /career-advice/*Disallow: /jobs*Disallow: /swipe/*Disallow: /shop/registry/wedding/product/*Disallow: *Available_for_registry*Disallow: /shop/*,*,*,*,*?*Allow: /shop/*/*,*,Pageindex/*,*Disallow: /shop/*/*,*,*,Pageindex/*,*Disallow: /*&*&*&*&*&*Disallow: /shop/own-your-style/*/*Disallow: /shop/the-workshop-at-macys/*/*Disallow: /contemporary*Disallow: *ngf*Disallow: *old-categories*Disallow: *old-dnu*Disallow: *isDlp=true*Disallow: */review/add*Disallow: /shop/new-trending/*,*Disallow: /shop/new-trending/*,*,Pageindex/*Allow: /shop/new-trending/*,Pageindex/*Disallow: /shop/wedding-shop*Disallow: *Upc-bops-purchasableDisallow: *Upc_sdd_purchasableDisallow: *Special_offersDisallow: *cm_re=*Disallow: *edge=*Disallow: *search/v1/conversation/get-token/public* User-agent: TwitterbotDisallow: *Allow: /shop/product… 83 lines not about AI bots User-agent: ClaudeBotCrawl-delay: 5 Sitemap: https://www.macys.com/dyn_img/sitemap/mcom_sitemapindex.xmlSitemap: https://www.macys.com/dyn_img/sitemap/mcom_sitemapindex_labs.xml… 2 lines not about AI bots
Everything else we checked
| Front door | Turned away The homepage turned our bot, which says who it is, away (HTTP 403).GET https://macys.com/ as WalledWebBot, from a residential connection in the United States |
|---|---|
| llms.txt | Skipped: robots.txt request was refused |
| ai.txt | Skipped: robots.txt request was refused |
| TDMRep | Skipped: robots.txt request was refused/.well-known/tdmrep.json (W3C Community Group report) |
| Page tags | Homepage not read. |
| Anti-bot software | Served through Akamai.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 Content-Signal or Content-Usage lines or licensing signals (RSL License, HTTP 402). |
History
39 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 2026Signals Named ClaudeBot explicitly, without changing what it may reach.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Apr 2026 and 1 May 2026. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
+ User-agent: AdsBot-Google+ Disallow:++ User-agent: adidxbot+ Disallow:+User-agent: *…Disallow: /buy/*- Disallow: /my-bag/*+ Disallow: /my/bag*+ Disallow: /*|*+ Disallow: /*%7C*+ Disallow: /*,*,*/*,*,*Disallow: /shop/b/*/*,*/*,*- Disallow: /shop/*/*,*,*/*,*,*- Disallow: /shop/*/*/*,*,*/*,*,*Disallow: *nocrawl*-Disallow: *?ss=true…Disallow: /sitemonetization/--+ Disallow: /userEventsConsumer/*+ Disallow: /EventsWar/*+ Disallow: /reviews/myReviews*+ Disallow: /catalog*+ Disallow: /pricingpolicy.ognc*+ Disallow: /account-xapi/*+ Disallow: /nosessioncookie.jsp+ Disallow: /cms/slp/2/*+ Disallow: /wgl/*+ Disallow: /v1/*+ Disallow: /campaign/affiliate*+ Disallow: /regsvc/*+ Disallow: /career-advice/*+ Disallow: /jobs*+ Disallow: /swipe/*+ Disallow: /shop/registry/wedding/product/*+ Disallow: *Available_for_registry*+ Disallow: /shop/*,*,*,*,*?*+ Allow: /shop/*/*,*,Pageindex/*,*+ Disallow: /shop/*/*,*,*,Pageindex/*,*+ Disallow: /*&*&*&*&*+ Disallow: /shop/own-your-style/*/*+ Disallow: /shop/the-workshop-at-macys/*/*+ Disallow: /contemporary*+ Disallow: *ngf*+ Disallow: *old-categories*+ Disallow: *old-dnu*+ Disallow: *isDlp=true*+ Disallow: */review/add*+ Disallow: /shop/new-trending/*,*+ Disallow: /shop/new-trending/*,*,Pageindex/*+ Allow: /shop/new-trending/*,Pageindex/*+ Disallow: /shop/wedding-shop*+ Disallow: *Upc-bops-purchasable+ Disallow: *Upc_sdd_purchasable+ Disallow: *Special_offers… 17 more lines
Reports from readers
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