chess.com: what it tells AI crawlers

On 28 October 2026, chess.com's robots.txt allowed all of GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot and CCBot.

Last verified 2026-10-29 03:59 UTC (daily run of 2026-10-28). Proof for that day.

Panel

top 1k (Tranco)

robots.txt

ok (HTTP 200) · https://www.chess.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha256 5828c81ec84ee4c9… · view as recorded

The * group

partial applies to every agent without its own group

Per AI bot, 2026-10-28

Other signals

robots.txt as recorded sha256 9ded8030eccac89f…

User-agent: *
Disallow: /_
Disallow: /en/
Disallow: /cdn-cgi/
Disallow: /admin
Disallow: /developers
Disallow: /download/pgn
Disallow: /fb
Disallow: /home/
Disallow: /logout
Disallow: /message
Disallow: /settings
Disallow: /switch
Disallow: /unsubscribe
Disallow: /webhook
Disallow: /callback/
Disallow: /service/
Disallow: /password-management

Disallow: /club/*/join/

    
Disallow: /login_
Disallow: /login_and_go
Disallow: /payment/
Disallow: /games/archive
Disallow: /games/search
Disallow: /topic/
Disallow: /awards/
Disallow: /stats/
Disallow: /game/

User-agent: *
Disallow: /*/login_
Disallow: /*/login_and_go
Disallow: /*/payment/
Disallow: /*/games/archive
Disallow: /*/games/search
Disallow: /*/topic/
Disallow: /*/awards/
Disallow: /*/stats/
Disallow: /*/game/

Sitemap: https://www.chess.com/sitemapindex.xml

#                     .,;;::;;,.
#                  .:codddddollll;.
#                .ccoxxxxxxxdlllllc;.
#               'llcxxxxxxxdlllllllc:.
#              .lllxxxxxdollllllllll::.
#              ;lllouuolllllllllllll::'
#              ,llllllllllllllllllll::'
#              .lllllllllllllllllll:::.
#               .llllllllllllllllc:::.
#                .cllllllllllllc:::;.
#                  ,llllllllc:::::'
#               .,cllllllllllc:::::;..
#            .,llllllllllllllllc::::::::.
#           illlllllllllllllllllc::::::::;
#           clllllllllllllllllllc::::::::;
#           .;;;;;;;cllllllllllc:;'''''''`
#                   .::::::::::::.
#                   ,iiiccc;:::::.
#                   cllllllll::::;
#                  .llllllllli::::.
#                 .lllllllllli::::;.
#                .lllllllllll::::::;.
#               ,llllllllllll::::::::,
#             .clllllllllllli:::::::::;.
#           .cllllllllllllll::::::::::::;.
#         ,illllllllllllllli::::::::::::::;.
#      .:llllllllllllllllll::::::::::::::::::,
#     :llllllllllllllllllll::::::::::::::::::::,
#    cllllllllllllllllllll::::::::::::::::::::::;
#   cllllllllllllllllllll::::::::::::::::::::::::;
#  ':www.chess.com/jobs:::::::::::::::::::::::::::.
#  ;:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
#  ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
#  ;::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::;
#   ..,,;::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::;,...
#           ........''''''''''''''........

robots.txt versions

Timeline of changes

Reconstructed history (Common Crawl)

From Common Crawl's robots.txt captures: what CCBot was served, one crawl per quarter. A separate series from the daily observations above; a 403 here means Common Crawl was refused, not this ledger.

Evidence

Every daily observation of chess.com is a leaf in that day's Merkle tree. Proof of the robots.txt line for 2026-10-28: audit path (JSON), day root and OpenTimestamps proof (complete (bitcoin block 973640)).

API: https://infrarabbit.com/crawlers/api/v1/policy/chess.com