ft.com: what it tells AI crawlers

On 27 October 2026, ft.com's robots.txt fully blocked ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, 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.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, 2026-10-27

User agent	Verdict	How
GPTBot	allows	through the * group
OAI-SearchBot	allows	through the * group
ChatGPT-User	allows	through the * 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	allows	through the * 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	allows	through the * group
anthropic-ai	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
GoogleOther	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

Other signals

Publishes /llms.txt	no
Publishes /ai.txt	no
Publishes /.well-known/tdmrep.json	no
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 Signal	not 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 directives	not observed
Refused our fetcher (403 / challenge)	no

robots.txt as recorded sha256 57ce1e58ae57b176…

# All use of FT content is subject to the Terms & Conditions and
# Copyright Policy set out on FT.com

# We expressly prohibit any use of our content or data for any
# machine learning or artificial intelligence purposes, including
# the training or development of AI technologies or machine learning
# language models.
#
# For any licensing queries please contact content.licensing@ft.com

Sitemap: https://www.ft.com/sitemaps/index.xml

User-agent: *
Disallow: /__
Disallow: /_fs-ch
Disallow: /article/e63d8640-eeb3-4473-b0ad-aa6aec16d9fe
Disallow: /buy/
Disallow: /cancel/
Disallow: /join/
Disallow: /login
Disallow: /myft
Disallow: /offline/
Disallow: /page-resources
Disallow: /preferences/manage-cookies
Disallow: /register/
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /signup
Allow: /__origami/
Allow: /__assets/
Crawl-Delay: 1

User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
Allow: /*?syn-25a6b1a6=1

User-agent: GoogleOther
Disallow: /

User-agent: anthropic-ai
Disallow: /

User-agent: omgili
Disallow: /

User-agent: omgilibot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /

User-agent: cohere-ai
Disallow: /

User-agent: magpie-crawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: NewsNow
Disallow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /

User-agent: Claude-Web
Disallow: /

User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Diffbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: FacebookBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: meta-externalagent
Disallow: /

User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher
Disallow: /

robots.txt versions

From	Through	State	Version
2026-10-26	2026-10-27	ok 200	`57ce1e58ae57`

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
2024-09-16 CC-MAIN-2024-38	www.ft.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	blocks	allows	unknown	blocks
2022-10-03 CC-MAIN-2022-40	www.ft.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2021-09-27 CC-MAIN-2021-39	www.ft.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2020-09-28 CC-MAIN-2020-40	www.ft.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2019-09-23 CC-MAIN-2019-39	www.ft.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2018-09-24 CC-MAIN-2018-39	www.ft.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-09-25 CC-MAIN-2017-39	www.ft.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-01-23 CC-MAIN-2017-04	ft.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2016-10-03 CC-MAIN-2016-40	ft.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2016-09-05 CC-MAIN-2016-36	ft.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows

Evidence

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

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