theverge.com: what it tells AI crawlers
On 27 October 2026, theverge.com's robots.txt fully blocked 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://theverge.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha256f74664eb7fc3cbdf…· 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | named in its own group |
| aiHitBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| anthropic-ai | blocks | named in its own group |
| ApifyBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| ApifyWebsiteContentCrawler | blocks | named in its own group |
| Applebot | allows | named in its own group |
| Brightbot | blocks | named in its own group |
| ChatGLM-Spider | blocks | named in its own group |
| Claude-Web | blocks | named in its own group |
| CloudVertexBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| cohere-ai | blocks | named in its own group |
| cohere-training-data-crawler | blocks | named in its own group |
| Cotoyogi | blocks | named in its own group |
| DeepSeekBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Diffbot | blocks | named in its own group |
| DuckAssistBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| FacebookBot | blocks | 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 |
| iaskspider | blocks | named in its own group |
| ICC-Crawler | blocks | named in its own group |
| ImagesiftBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| meta-externalfetcher | blocks | named in its own group |
| MistralAI-User | blocks | named in its own group |
| omgili | blocks | named in its own group |
| omgilibot | blocks | named in its own group |
| PetalBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| SBIntuitionsBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Scrapy | blocks | named in its own group |
| TikTokSpider | blocks | named in its own group |
| Timpibot | blocks | named in its own group |
| VelenPublicWebCrawler | blocks | named in its own group |
| Webzio-Extended | 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) | 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 54ff0267ac41cb48…
User-agent: Googlebot-News Disallow: /admin Disallow: /newfanshot Disallow: /users/*/replies Disallow: /users/*/comments Disallow: /search Disallow: /account Disallow: /login Disallow: /chorus_auth Disallow: /sso Disallow: /ad Disallow: /sponsored User-agent: * Disallow: /admin Disallow: /newfanshot Disallow: /users/*/replies Disallow: /users/*/comments Disallow: /search Disallow: /account Disallow: /login Disallow: /chorus_auth Disallow: /sso Sitemap: https://www.theverge.com/sitemaps Sitemap: https://www.theverge.com/sitemaps/authors Sitemap: https://www.theverge.com/sitemaps/groups Sitemap: https://www.theverge.com/sitemaps/videos Sitemap: https://www.theverge.com/sitemaps/google_news
robots.txt versions
| From | Through | State | Version | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-26 | 2026-10-27 | ok 200 | f74664eb7fc3 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09-15 CC-MAIN-2025-38 | theverge.com | absent | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2024-09-16 CC-MAIN-2024-38 | www.theverge.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | blocks | allows | unknown | blocks |
| 2023-10-02 CC-MAIN-2023-40 | www.theverge.com | ok view | blocks | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2022-10-03 CC-MAIN-2022-40 | www.theverge.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2021-09-27 CC-MAIN-2021-39 | www.theverge.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2020-09-28 CC-MAIN-2020-40 | www.theverge.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2019-09-23 CC-MAIN-2019-39 | www.theverge.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2018-09-24 CC-MAIN-2018-39 | www.theverge.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2018-01-29 CC-MAIN-2018-05 | theverge.com | fetch-blocked | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2017-10-23 CC-MAIN-2017-43 | theverge.com | fetch-blocked | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2017-09-25 CC-MAIN-2017-39 | theverge.com | fetch-blocked | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2017-07-24 CC-MAIN-2017-30 | theverge.com | fetch-blocked | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2017-04-24 CC-MAIN-2017-17 | theverge.com | fetch-blocked | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2017-01-23 CC-MAIN-2017-04 | theverge.com | fetch-blocked | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2016-10-03 CC-MAIN-2016-40 | theverge.com | fetch-blocked | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2016-09-05 CC-MAIN-2016-36 | theverge.com | fetch-blocked | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
Evidence
Every daily observation of theverge.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/theverge.com