cnn.com: what it tells AI crawlers

On 27 October 2026, cnn.com's robots.txt fully blocked GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and CCBot.

Last verified 2026-10-28 03:59 UTC (daily run of 2026-10-27). Proof for that day.

Panel: top 1k (Tranco)
robots.txt: ok (HTTP 200) · https://www.cnn.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha256 b6cf25ecc82c7881… · view as recorded
The * group: allows applies to every agent without its own group

Per AI bot, 2026-10-27

User agent	Verdict	How
GPTBot	blocks	named in its own group
OAI-SearchBot	blocks	named in its own group
ChatGPT-User	blocks	named in its own group
ClaudeBot	blocks	named in its own group
Claude-SearchBot	blocks	named in its own group
Claude-User	blocks	named in its own group
PerplexityBot	blocks	named in its own group
Perplexity-User	blocks	named in its own group
Googlebot	allows	through the * group
Google-Extended	allows	through the * group
Applebot-Extended	blocks	named in its own group
CCBot	blocks	named in its own group
Bytespider	blocks	named in its own group
Meta-ExternalAgent	allows	through the * group
Amazonbot	blocks	named in its own group
Amzn-SearchBot	blocks	named in its own group
Amzn-User	blocks	named in its own group
anthropic-ai	blocks	named in its own group
Brightbot	blocks	named in its own group
Claude-Web	blocks	named in its own group
cohere-ai	blocks	named in its own group
cohere-training-data-crawler	blocks	named in its own group
Crawlspace	blocks	named in its own group
Diffbot	blocks	named in its own group
Diffbot-User	blocks	named in its own group
DuckAssistBot	blocks	named in its own group
EchoboxBot	blocks	named in its own group
ExaBot	blocks	named in its own group
ExaSearchBot	blocks	named in its own group
ExaUser	blocks	named in its own group
FacebookBot	blocks	named in its own group
FirecrawlAgent	blocks	named in its own group
FriendlyCrawler	blocks	named in its own group
GoogleOther	blocks	named in its own group
GoogleOther-Image	blocks	named in its own group
GoogleOther-Video	blocks	named in its own group
iaskspider	blocks	named in its own group
ICC-Crawler	blocks	named in its own group
ImagesiftBot	blocks	named in its own group
ISSCyberRiskCrawler	blocks	named in its own group
MistralAI-User	blocks	named in its own group
MyCentralAIScraperBot	blocks	named in its own group
omgili	blocks	named in its own group
omgilibot	blocks	named in its own group
PanguBot	blocks	named in its own group
Panscient	blocks	named in its own group
PetalBot	blocks	named in its own group
QuillBot	blocks	named in its own group
SBIntuitionsBot	blocks	named in its own group
Scrapy	blocks	named in its own group
SemrushBot-OCOB	blocks	named in its own group
SemrushBot-SWA	blocks	named in its own group
Shap-User	blocks	named in its own group
ShapBot	blocks	named in its own group
TavilyBot	blocks	named in its own group
Timpibot	blocks	named in its own group
VelenPublicWebCrawler	blocks	named in its own group
Webzio-Extended	blocks	named in its own group
YandexAdditional	blocks	named in its own group
YandexAdditionalBot	blocks	named in its own group
YouBot	blocks	named in its own group

Other signals

Publishes /llms.txt	no
Publishes /ai.txt	no
Publishes /.well-known/tdmrep.json	no
Reserves TDM rights (TDMRep file, header or meta)	no
Declares Content Signals (robots.txt or header)	no
Says ai-train=no in a Content Signal	no
Points to an RSL licence (robots.txt License line or Link header)	no
Answers with an x402 payment offer (lower bound: only the homepage is probed)	no
Answers HTTP 402 Payment Required (lower bound: only the homepage is probed)	no
Sends noai / noimageai directives	no
Refused our fetcher (403 / challenge)	no

robots.txt as recorded sha256 920931150e14de71…

Sitemap: https://www.cnn.com/sitemaps/cnn/index.xml
Sitemap: https://www.cnn.com/sitemaps/cnn/news.xml
Sitemap: https://www.cnn.com/sitemaps/sitemap-section.xml
Sitemap: https://www.cnn.com/sitemaps/sitemap-interactive.xml
Sitemap: https://www.cnn.com/ampstories/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://edition.cnn.com/sitemaps/news.xml
User-agent: *
Allow: /partners/ipad/live-video.json
Disallow: /ads/
Disallow: /aol/
Disallow: /audio/
Disallow: /beta/
Disallow: /browsers/
Disallow: /business/
Disallow: /business-videos/
Disallow: /cars/
Disallow: /cl/
Disallow: /cnews/
Disallow: /cnn_adspaces
Disallow: /cnnbeta/
Disallow: /cnnintl_adspaces
Disallow: /development
Disallow: /economy/
Disallow: /editionssi
Disallow: /energy/
Disallow: /help/cnnx.html
Disallow: /homes/
Disallow: /india/
Disallow: /investing/
Disallow: /media/
Disallow: /NewsPass
Disallow: /NOKIA
Disallow: /partners/
Disallow: /perspectives/
Disallow: /pipeline/
Disallow: /pointroll/
Disallow: /POLLSERVER/
Disallow: /pr/
Disallow: /privacy
Disallow: /PV/
Disallow: /Quickcast/
Disallow: /quickcast/
Disallow: /QUICKNEWS/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /success/
Disallow: /tech/
Disallow: /terms
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /virtual/
Disallow: /WEB-INF/
Disallow: /web.projects/
Disallow: /webview/
Disallow: /*/business/
Disallow: /*/business-videos/
Disallow: /*/cars/
Disallow: /*/economy/
Disallow: /*/energy/
Disallow: /*/homes/
Disallow: /*/india/
Disallow: /*/investing/
Disallow: /*/media/
Disallow: /*/perspectives/
Disallow: /*/success/
Disallow: /*/tech/

robots.txt versions

From	Through	State	Version
2026-10-26	2026-10-27	ok 200	`b6cf25ecc82c`

Timeline of changes

Date	What changed
No changes since the first observation (2026-10-26).

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.

Crawl	Host	State	GPTBot	OAI-SearchBot	ChatGPT-User	ClaudeBot	Claude-SearchBot	Claude-User	PerplexityBot
2026-09-21 CC-MAIN-2026-39	www.cnn.com	ok view	blocks	blocks	unknown	blocks	blocks	unknown	blocks
2025-09-15 CC-MAIN-2025-38	www.cnn.com	ok view	blocks	blocks	unknown	blocks	allows	unknown	blocks
2024-09-16 CC-MAIN-2024-38	www.cnn.com	ok view	blocks	allows	unknown	blocks	allows	unknown	blocks
2023-10-02 CC-MAIN-2023-40	www.cnn.com	ok view	blocks	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2022-10-03 CC-MAIN-2022-40	www.cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2021-09-27 CC-MAIN-2021-39	www.cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2020-09-28 CC-MAIN-2020-40	www.cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2019-09-23 CC-MAIN-2019-39	www.cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2018-09-24 CC-MAIN-2018-39	www.cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2018-04-23 CC-MAIN-2018-17	cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2018-01-29 CC-MAIN-2018-05	cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-10-23 CC-MAIN-2017-43	www.cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-09-25 CC-MAIN-2017-39	www.cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-07-24 CC-MAIN-2017-30	www.cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-04-24 CC-MAIN-2017-17	cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-01-23 CC-MAIN-2017-04	cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2016-10-03 CC-MAIN-2016-40	cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2016-09-05 CC-MAIN-2016-36	cnn.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows

Evidence

Every daily observation of cnn.com is a leaf in that day's Merkle tree. Proof of the robots.txt line for 2026-10-27: audit path (JSON), day root and OpenTimestamps proof (complete (bitcoin block 973493)).

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