gnu.org: what it tells AI crawlers

On 28 October 2026, gnu.org'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.gnu.org/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha256 0e4faeb5a566b55b… · view as recorded

The * group

allows applies to every agent without its own group

Per AI bot, 2026-10-28

Other signals

robots.txt as recorded sha256 0e4faeb5a566b55b…

# robots.txt for http://www.gnu.org/

User-agent: *
Crawl-delay: 4
Disallow: */CVS/
Disallow: */po/
Disallow: */workshop/
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /copyleft/
Disallow: /gnu.css
Disallow: /gnusearch/
Disallow: /norobotsnorhumansshouldevervisithispage/
Disallow: /prep/gnumaint/
Disallow: /prep/wrappers-and-scripts/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /rss/
Disallow: /savannah-checkouts/
Disallow: /screenshots/
Disallow: /server/banners/
Disallow: /server/body-include*
Disallow: /server/bottom-notes*
Disallow: /server/footer*
Disallow: /server/fs-gang*
Disallow: /server/generic*
Disallow: /server/gnun/
Disallow: /server/head-include*
Disallow: /server/header*
Disallow: /server/html5-head-include*
Disallow: /server/html5-header*
Disallow: /server/include-file-list*
Disallow: /server/outdated*
Disallow: /server/select-language.html
Disallow: /server/source/
Disallow: /server/staging/
Disallow: /server/top-addendum*
Disallow: /server/trans-map.html
Disallow: /server/whatsnew_translations.xml
Disallow: /software/gnun/linc/
Disallow: /software/gnun/proofread/
Disallow: /software/gnun/reports/
Disallow: /software/gnun/test/
Disallow: /usenet/
Sitemap: http://www.gnu.org/sitemap.xml

# Majestic - SEO
User-agent: MJ12bot
Disallow: /

# DataForSeo - SEO
User-agent: DataForSeoBot
Disallow: /

# webmeup - SEO
User-agent: BLEXBot
Disallow: /

# Ahrefs - SEO
User-agent: AhrefsBot
Disallow: /

# babbar - SEO
User-agent: barkrowler
Disallow: /

# Screamingfrog - SEO
User-agent: Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Disallow: /

# Seozoom - SEO
User-Agent: ZoomBot
Disallow: /

# Brandwatch - SEO
User-agent: magpie-crawler
Disallow: /

# Begin Moz - SEO
# Not to be confused with Mozilla.
User-agent: DotBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: rogerbot
Disallow: /
# End Moz - SEO

# Begin Semrush - SEO
User-agent: SemrushBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: SiteAuditBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: SemrushBot-BA
Disallow: /

User-agent: SemrushBot-SI
Disallow: /

User-agent: SemrushBot-SWA
Disallow: /

User-agent: SplitSignalBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: SemrushBot-OCOB
Disallow: /
# End Semrush - SEO

# cognitiveSEO - SEO
User-agent: JamesBOT
Disallow: /

# oncrawl - SEO
User-agent: Oncrawl
Disallow: /

# BEGIN Awario - Marketing
User-agent: AwarioRssBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: AwarioSmartBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: AwarioBot
Disallow: /
# END Awario - Marketing

# SERPSTAT - SEO
User-agent: serpstatbot
Disallow: /

# website-datenbank.de - Search engine?
User-agent: netEstate NE Crawler
Disallow: /

# Ignores crawl-delay and does not help us.
User-Agent: panscient.com
Disallow: /

# Aggressive Latvian Academic Integrity bot that does not help us.
User-agent: AcademicBotRTU
Disallow: /

# See RT #1298215 about internationalization and localization abuse.
# See RT #1638325 about localization, Savannah, and more.
# See RT #2171216 about redirections and unused files.

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 gnu.org 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/gnu.org