nytimes.com: what it tells AI crawlers

On 27 October 2026, nytimes.com's robots.txt fully blocked GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, 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.nytimes.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha256 04dee26f145ee778… · 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	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	allows	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
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
FacebookBot	blocks	named in its own group
facebookexternalhit	allows	named in its own group
FirecrawlAgent	blocks	named in its own group
FriendlyCrawler	blocks	named in its own group
Google-CloudVertexBot	blocks	named in its own group
ImagesiftBot	blocks	named in its own group
meta-externalfetcher	blocks	named in its own group
meta-webindexer	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
QuillBot	blocks	named in its own group
Scrapy	blocks	named in its own group
ShapBot	blocks	named in its own group
Timpibot	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)	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 1a198ba577ff1345…

User-agent: *
Disallow: /ads/
Disallow: /adx/bin/
Disallow: /puzzles/leaderboards/invite/*
Disallow: /svc
Disallow: /video/embedded/*
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /multiproduct/
Disallow: /hd/
Disallow: /inyt/
Disallow: /*?*query=
Disallow: /*.pdf$
Disallow: /*?*login=
Disallow: /*?*searchResultPosition=
Disallow: /*?*campaignId=
Disallow: /*?*mcubz=
Disallow: /*?*smprod=
Disallow: /*?*ProfileID=
Disallow: /*?*ListingID=
Disallow: /wirecutter/wp-admin/
Disallow: /wirecutter/*.zip$
Disallow: /wirecutter/*.csv$
Disallow: /wirecutter/deals/beta
Disallow: /wirecutter/data-requests
Disallow: /wirecutter/search
Disallow: /wirecutter/*?s=
Disallow: /wirecutter/*&xid=
Disallow: /wirecutter/*?q=
Disallow: /wirecutter/*?l=
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /*?*smid=
Disallow: /*?*partner=
Disallow: /*?*utm_source=
Allow: /wirecutter/*?*utm_source=
Allow: /ads/public/
Allow: /svc/news/v3/all/pshb.rss

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

User-Agent: omgilibot
Disallow: /

User-Agent: omgili
Disallow: /

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/new/news.xml.gz
Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/new/sitemap.xml.gz
Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/new/collections.xml.gz
Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/new/video.xml.gz
Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/new/cooking.xml.gz
Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/new/recipe-collects.xml.gz
Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/new/regions.xml
Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/new/best-sellers.xml
Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/www.nytimes.com/2016_election_sitemap.xml.gz
Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2018/sitemap
Sitemap: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/sitemapindex.xml

robots.txt versions

From	Through	State	Version
2026-10-26	2026-10-27	ok 200	`04dee26f145e`

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.nytimes.com	ok view	blocks	blocks	unknown	blocks	blocks	unknown	blocks
2025-09-15 CC-MAIN-2025-38	www.nytimes.com	ok view	blocks	blocks	unknown	blocks	blocks	unknown	blocks
2024-09-16 CC-MAIN-2024-38	www.nytimes.com	ok view	blocks	blocks	unknown	blocks	allows	unknown	blocks
2023-10-02 CC-MAIN-2023-40	www.nytimes.com	ok view	blocks	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2022-10-03 CC-MAIN-2022-40	www.nytimes.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2021-09-27 CC-MAIN-2021-39	www.nytimes.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2020-09-28 CC-MAIN-2020-40	www.nytimes.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2019-09-23 CC-MAIN-2019-39	www.nytimes.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2018-09-24 CC-MAIN-2018-39	www2.nytimes.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-09-25 CC-MAIN-2017-39	www2.nytimes.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2017-01-23 CC-MAIN-2017-04	www2.nytimes.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2016-10-03 CC-MAIN-2016-40	nytimes.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows
2016-09-05 CC-MAIN-2016-36	nytimes.com	ok view	allows	allows	unknown	allows	allows	unknown	allows

Evidence

Every daily observation of nytimes.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/nytimes.com