ted.com: what it tells AI crawlers

On 27 October 2026, ted.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://www.ted.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha256 e38b742627d22ff0… · 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	named in its own group
ChatGPT-User	allows	named in its own group
ClaudeBot	blocks	named in its own group
Claude-SearchBot	allows	named in its own group
Claude-User	allows	named in its own group
PerplexityBot	allows	named in its own group
Perplexity-User	allows	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	blocks	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
cohere-training-data-crawler	blocks	named in its own group
DeepSeekBot	blocks	named in its own group
Diffbot	blocks	named in its own group
DuckAssistBot	allows	named in its own group
FacebookBot	blocks	named in its own group
FriendlyCrawler	blocks	named in its own group
GrokBot	blocks	named in its own group
iaskspider	blocks	named in its own group
ImagesiftBot	blocks	named in its own group
MistralAI-User	allows	named in its own group
omgili	blocks	named in its own group
omgilibot	blocks	named in its own group
PanguBot	blocks	named in its own group
PetalBot	allows	named in its own group
Timpibot	blocks	named in its own group
Webzio-Extended	blocks	named in its own group
YouBot	allows	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 e38b742627d22ff0…

User-agent: *
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /graphql
Disallow: /_next/data/
Disallow: /services/
Disallow: /me.json
Disallow: /follows.json
Disallow: /translations.json
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /latest
Disallow: /latest-talk
Disallow: /latest-playlist
Disallow: /people
Disallow: /profiles
Disallow: /themes/rss

User-agent: Baiduspider
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /graphql
Disallow: /_next/data/
Disallow: /services/
Disallow: /me.json
Disallow: /follows.json
Disallow: /translations.json
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /latest
Disallow: /latest-talk
Disallow: /latest-playlist
Disallow: /people
Disallow: /profiles

# AI answer-engine crawlers — indexing allowed, data/API endpoints blocked
# These crawlers power AI search citations; blocking removes TED from AI answers
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
User-agent: PerplexityBot
User-agent: Perplexity-User
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
User-agent: Claude-User
User-agent: DuckAssistBot
User-agent: MistralAI-User
User-agent: YouBot
User-agent: PetalBot
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /graphql
Disallow: /_next/data/
Disallow: /services/
Disallow: /me.json
Disallow: /follows.json
Disallow: /translations.json
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /latest
Disallow: /latest-talk
Disallow: /latest-playlist
Disallow: /people
Disallow: /profiles
Disallow: /dashboard
Disallow: /settings
Disallow: /themes/rss

# AI training-only crawlers — blocked sitewide
# These crawlers harvest content for model training with no citation/referral value
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: anthropic-ai
Disallow: /
User-agent: Claude-Web
Disallow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: Amazonbot
Disallow: /
User-agent: meta-externalagent
Disallow: /
User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
Disallow: /
User-agent: FacebookBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /
User-agent: cohere-ai
Disallow: /
User-agent: cohere-training-data-crawler
Disallow: /
User-agent: PanguBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Diffbot
Disallow: /
User-agent: FriendlyCrawler
Disallow: /
User-agent: ImagesiftBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: img2dataset
Disallow: /
User-agent: omgili
Disallow: /
User-agent: omgilibot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Webzio-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: Timpibot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Brightbot
Disallow: /
User-agent: DataForSeoBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: DeepSeekBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: iaskspider
Disallow: /
User-agent: GrokBot
Disallow: /

Sitemap: https://www.ted.com/sitemap.xml

robots.txt versions

From	Through	State	Version
2026-10-26	2026-10-27	ok 200	`e38b742627d2`

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

Evidence

Every daily observation of ted.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/ted.com