techcrunch.com: what it tells AI crawlers
On 27 October 2026, techcrunch.com's robots.txt fully blocked GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended 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://techcrunch.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha2565fbefc8fdb1ded6f…· 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 | allows | through the * 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 | allows | through the * group |
| Perplexity-User | allows | through the * 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 | allows | through the * 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 |
| omgili | 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 f44e4636ff44204c…
# This file was generated on Tue, 06 Oct 2015 22:17:23 +0000 # If you are regularly crawling WordPress.com sites, please use our firehose to receive real-time push updates instead. # Please see http://en.wordpress.com/firehose/ for more details. Sitemap: http://techcrunch.com/news-sitemap.xml User-agent: IRLbot Crawl-delay: 3600 User-agent: * Disallow: /next/ User-agent: * Disallow: /mshots/v1/ # har har User-agent: * Disallow: /activate/ User-agent: * Disallow: /public.api/ # MT refugees User-agent: * Disallow: /cgi-bin/ User-agent: * Disallow: /wp-login.php User-agent: Swiftbot Disallow: User-agent: * Disallow: /search/ Disallow: */lightbox Sitemap: http://techcrunch.com/video-sitemap.xml User-agent: * Disallow: /wp-admin/ # Sitemap archive Sitemap: http://techcrunch.com/sitemap.xml
robots.txt versions
| From | Through | State | Version | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-26 | 2026-10-27 | ok 200 | 5fbefc8fdb1d |
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 | techcrunch.com | ok view | blocks | allows | unknown | blocks | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2025-09-15 CC-MAIN-2025-38 | techcrunch.com | ok view | blocks | allows | unknown | blocks | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2024-09-16 CC-MAIN-2024-38 | techcrunch.com | ok view | blocks | allows | unknown | blocks | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2023-10-02 CC-MAIN-2023-40 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2022-10-03 CC-MAIN-2022-40 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2021-09-27 CC-MAIN-2021-39 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2020-09-28 CC-MAIN-2020-40 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2019-09-23 CC-MAIN-2019-39 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2018-09-24 CC-MAIN-2018-39 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2017-10-23 CC-MAIN-2017-43 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2017-09-25 CC-MAIN-2017-39 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2017-07-24 CC-MAIN-2017-30 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2017-04-24 CC-MAIN-2017-17 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2017-01-23 CC-MAIN-2017-04 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2016-10-03 CC-MAIN-2016-40 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2016-09-05 CC-MAIN-2016-36 | techcrunch.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
Evidence
Every daily observation of techcrunch.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/techcrunch.com