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Medium
medium.comBlocks some
Its robots.txt (the public rules file for bots) treats AI bots differently from each other. It blocks 6 of the 24 AI bots we track from the whole site, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Applebot-Extended, Meta-ExternalAgent and Bytespider. Google-Extended, CCBot, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and 4 more can reach most of it. The homepage also showed our bot, which says who it is, a Generic bot 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
5 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 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 · Some blocked | |||
| GPTBotOpenAI | Blocked | Named, line 22 | Says yes |
| ClaudeBotAnthropic | Blocked | Named, line 22 | 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 22 | Says yes |
| CCBotCommon Crawl | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Says yes |
| Meta-ExternalAgentMeta | Blocked | Named, line 22 | Suggests yes |
| BytespiderByteDance | Blocked | Named, line 22 | 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 · 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 | Allowed | Not named; the catch-all rule applies | Suggests yes |
| AmazonbotAmazon | Blocked | Named, line 22 | 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 | |
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.
| FacebookBot | Blocked | line 26 | Not in our verified list |
| GoogleOther | Blocked | line 27 | Documented by its operator |
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: /m/Disallow: /me/Disallow: /@me$Disallow: /@me/Disallow: /*/edit$Disallow: /*/*/edit$Disallow: /media/Disallow: /p/*/shareDisallow: /r/Disallow: /trendingDisallow: /search?q$Disallow: /search?q=Disallow: /*/search?q=Disallow: /*/search/*?q=Disallow: /*/*source=Allow: /_/api/users/*/metaAllow: /_/api/users/*/profile/streamAllow: /_/api/posts/*/responsesAllow: /_/api/posts/*/responsesStreamAllow: /_/api/posts/*/relatedUser-Agent: AmazonbotUser-Agent: Applebot-ExtendedUser-Agent: BytespiderUser-Agent: ClaudeBotUser-Agent: FacebookBotUser-Agent: GoogleOtherUser-Agent: GPTBotUser-Agent: meta-externalagentDisallow: /Allow: /aboutAllow: /businessAllow: /earnAllow: /giftAllow: /membershipAllow: /partner-programAllow: /verified-authorsSitemap: https://medium.com/sitemap/sitemap.xmlLicense: https://medium.com/license.xml
Everything else we checked
| Front door | Human check The homepage showed our bot, which says who it is, a Generic bot challenge page instead of the site (HTTP 403).GET https://medium.com/ as WalledWebBot, from a residential connection in the United States |
|---|---|
| llms.txt | Refused (HTTP 403)https://medium.com/llms.txt |
| ai.txt | Refused (HTTP 403) |
| TDMRep | Refused (HTTP 403)/.well-known/tdmrep.json (W3C Community Group report) |
| Licensing | RSL License: https://medium.com/license.xml |
| Page tags | Homepage not read. |
| Anti-bot software | Served through Cloudflare.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. |
History
45 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.
- Sep 2025More blocking Now blocked: Meta-ExternalAgent and Amazonbot.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Aug 2025 and 1 Sep 2025. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
Disallow: /*/*source=- Allow: /_/Allow: /_/api/users/*/meta…Allow: /_/api/posts/*/related- Sitemap: https://medium.com/sitemap/sitemap.xml+ User-Agent: AmazonbotUser-Agent: Applebot-Extended…User-Agent: GPTBot+ User-Agent: meta-externalagentDisallow: /…Allow: /verified-authors+ Sitemap: https://medium.com/sitemap/sitemap.xmlLicense: https://medium.com/license.xml - Jul 2025Less blocking Now allowed: Google-Extended. Added an RSL
License:line pointing to licensing terms.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Jun 2025 and 1 Jul 2025. Evidence: before · afterShow exactly what changed
User-Agent: GoogleOther- User-Agent: Google-ExtendedUser-Agent: GPTBot…Allow: /verified-authors+ License: https://medium.com/license.xml - May 2025More blocking Now blocked: ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended and Bytespider.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Apr 2025 and 1 May 2025. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
Disallow: /search?q=+ Disallow: /*/search?q=+ Disallow: /*/search/*?q=Disallow: /*/*source=…Sitemap: https://medium.com/sitemap/sitemap.xml+ User-Agent: Applebot-Extended+ User-Agent: Bytespider+ User-Agent: ClaudeBot+ User-Agent: FacebookBot+ User-Agent: GoogleOther+ User-Agent: Google-ExtendedUser-Agent: GPTBotDisallow: /+ Allow: /about+ Allow: /business+ Allow: /earn+ Allow: /gift+ Allow: /membership+ Allow: /partner-program+ Allow: /verified-authors - Sep 2023More blocking Now blocked: GPTBot.Found in the Internet Archive's copies: changed between 1 Aug 2023 and 1 Sep 2023. Evidence: before · after
Show exactly what changed
Disallow: /search?q=+ Disallow: /*/*source=Allow: /_/…Sitemap: https://medium.com/sitemap/sitemap.xml+ User-Agent: GPTBot+ Disallow: /
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