ft.com: what it tells AI crawlers

On 26 October 2026, ft.com's robots.txt fully blocked ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot and CCBot.

Last verified 2026-10-26 21:13 UTC (daily run of 2026-10-26). Proof for that day.

Panel
top 1k (Tranco)
robots.txt
ok (HTTP 200) · https://www.ft.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha256 57ce1e58ae57b176… · view as recorded
The * group
allows applies to every agent without its own group

Per AI bot, 2026-10-26

User agentVerdictHow
GPTBotallowsthrough the * group
OAI-SearchBotallowsthrough the * group
ChatGPT-Userallowsthrough the * group
ClaudeBotblocksnamed in its own group
Claude-SearchBotallowsthrough the * group
Claude-Userallowsthrough the * group
PerplexityBotblocksnamed in its own group
Perplexity-Userblocksnamed in its own group
Googlebotallowsthrough the * group
Google-Extendedblocksnamed in its own group
Applebot-Extendedblocksnamed in its own group
CCBotblocksnamed in its own group
Bytespiderblocksnamed in its own group
Meta-ExternalAgentblocksnamed in its own group
Amazonbotallowsthrough the * group
anthropic-aiblocksnamed in its own group
Claude-Webblocksnamed in its own group
cohere-aiblocksnamed in its own group
Diffbotblocksnamed in its own group
FacebookBotblocksnamed in its own group
GoogleOtherblocksnamed in its own group
meta-externalfetcherblocksnamed in its own group
omgiliblocksnamed in its own group
omgilibotblocksnamed in its own group

Other signals

Publishes /llms.txtno
Publishes /ai.txtno
Publishes /.well-known/tdmrep.jsonno
Reserves TDM rights (TDMRep file, header or meta)not observed
Declares Content Signals (robots.txt or header)not observed
Says ai-train=no in a Content Signalnot observed
Points to an RSL licence (robots.txt License line or Link header)not observed
Answers with an x402 payment offer (lower bound: only the homepage is probed)not observed
Answers HTTP 402 Payment Required (lower bound: only the homepage is probed)not observed
Sends noai / noimageai directivesnot observed
Refused our fetcher (403 / challenge)no

robots.txt versions

FromThroughStateVersion
2026-10-262026-10-27ok 20057ce1e58ae57

Timeline of changes

DateWhat 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.

CrawlHostStateGPTBotOAI-SearchBotChatGPT-UserClaudeBotClaude-SearchBotClaude-UserPerplexityBot
2024-09-16 CC-MAIN-2024-38www.ft.comok viewallowsallowsunknownblocksallowsunknownblocks
2022-10-03 CC-MAIN-2022-40www.ft.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2021-09-27 CC-MAIN-2021-39www.ft.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2020-09-28 CC-MAIN-2020-40www.ft.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2019-09-23 CC-MAIN-2019-39www.ft.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2018-09-24 CC-MAIN-2018-39www.ft.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2017-09-25 CC-MAIN-2017-39www.ft.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2016-09-05 CC-MAIN-2016-36ft.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows

Evidence

Every daily observation of ft.com is a leaf in that day's Merkle tree. Proof of the robots.txt line for 2026-10-26: audit path (JSON), day root and OpenTimestamps proof (complete (bitcoin block 973294)).

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