dw.com: what it tells AI crawlers

On 28 October 2026, dw.com's robots.txt fully blocked GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, 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 10k (Tranco)
robots.txt: ok (HTTP 200) · https://www.dw.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha256 f7daa7ad2ba66d11… · view as recorded
The * group: allows applies to every agent without its own group

Per AI bot, 2026-10-28

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	allows	through the * group
Claude-User	allows	through the * group
PerplexityBot	blocks	named in its own group
Perplexity-User	blocks	named in its own group
Googlebot	partial	named in its own group
Google-Extended	blocks	named in its own 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	blocks	named in its own group
Amazonbot	blocks	named in its own group
anthropic-ai	blocks	named in its own group
Applebot	blocks	named in its own group
Claude-Web	blocks	named in its own group
cohere-ai	blocks	named in its own group
Diffbot	blocks	named in its own group
FacebookBot	blocks	named in its own group
facebookexternalhit	allows	named in its own group
FriendlyCrawler	blocks	named in its own group
ImagesiftBot	blocks	named in its own group
meta-externalfetcher	blocks	named in its own group
omgili	blocks	named in its own group
omgilibot	blocks	named in its own group
PetalBot	blocks	named in its own group
Scrapy	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
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 0448a6822b94dc08…

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /*/search/
Disallow: /overlay/
Disallow: /popups/mediaplayer/
Disallow: /popups/popup_gallery/
Disallow: /*/layoutvorlagen/
Disallow: /*/user/account$
Disallow: /*/user/activity$
Disallow: /*/user/profile$
Disallow: /*/user/password/change$
Disallow: /*/user/password/set$
Disallow: /*/user/feedback/status?type=*
Disallow: /*/user/register/confirm$
Disallow: /*/user/email/change$
Disallow: /popups/
Disallow: /media/
Disallow: /static/
Disallow: /graph-api/

User-agent: Googlebot
User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: /*?*
Disallow: /p/*

# DW content is made available for your personal, non-commercial use. Use of any device,
# tool, or process designed to data mine or scrape the content using automated means is
# prohibited without prior written permission from Deutsche Welle.

# Disallowd Bots

User-agent: AhrefsBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Ai2Bot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Ai2Bot-Dolma
Disallow: /

User-agent: Amazonbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: anthropic-ai
Disallow: /

User-agent: Applebot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: AwarioRssBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: AwarioSmartBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /

User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /

User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Claude-Web
Disallow: /

User-agent: cohere-ai
Disallow: /

User-agent: DataForSeoBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Diffbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: dotbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: FacebookBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: FriendlyCrawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

User-Agent: ImagesiftBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: img2dataset
Disallow: /

User-agent: magpie-crawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
Disallow: /

User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher
Disallow: /

User-agent: NewsNow
Disallow: /

User-agent: MJ12bot
Disallow: /

User-agent: news-please
Disallow: /

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: omgili
Disallow: /

User-agent: omgilibot
Disallow: /

User-agent: peer39_crawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: peer39_crawler/1.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: PetalBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Scrapy
Disallow: /

User-agent: SemrushBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: SirdataBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Timpibot
Disallow: /

User-agent: TurnitinBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: VelenPublicWebCrawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: Webzio-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: Yeti
Disallow: /

User-agent: YouBot
Disallow: /


# Other Bot Rules

User-agent: Twitterbot
Allow: /*?maca=*

# Facebook link sharing preview
User-agent: facebookexternalhit
Allow: /


# Sitemaps
Sitemap: https://www.dw.com/sitemap.xml

robots.txt versions

From	Through	State	Version
2026-10-26	2026-10-28	ok 200	`f7daa7ad2ba6`

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.dw.com	ok view	blocks	blocks	unknown	blocks	allows	unknown	blocks
2025-09-15 CC-MAIN-2025-38	www.dw.com	ok view	blocks	blocks	unknown	blocks	allows	unknown	blocks
2024-09-16 CC-MAIN-2024-38	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2023-10-02 CC-MAIN-2023-40	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2022-10-03 CC-MAIN-2022-40	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2021-09-27 CC-MAIN-2021-39	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2020-09-28 CC-MAIN-2020-40	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2019-09-23 CC-MAIN-2019-39	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2018-09-24 CC-MAIN-2018-39	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2018-07-23 CC-MAIN-2018-30	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2018-04-23 CC-MAIN-2018-17	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2018-01-29 CC-MAIN-2018-05	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-10-23 CC-MAIN-2017-43	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-09-25 CC-MAIN-2017-39	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-07-24 CC-MAIN-2017-30	www.dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-04-24 CC-MAIN-2017-17	dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-01-23 CC-MAIN-2017-04	dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2016-10-03 CC-MAIN-2016-40	dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2016-09-05 CC-MAIN-2016-36	dw.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows

Evidence

Every daily observation of dw.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/dw.com