usatoday.com: what it tells AI crawlers
On 27 October 2026, usatoday.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://eu.usatoday.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha2567ac5cfceb70ab70e…· 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 | 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 |
| AddSearchBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| aiHitBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| AmazonBuyForMe | blocks | named in its own group |
| Amzn-SearchBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Amzn-User | blocks | named in its own group |
| Andibot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Anomura | blocks | named in its own group |
| anthropic-ai | blocks | named in its own group |
| ApifyBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Applebot | blocks | named in its own group |
| atlassian-bot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Bravebot | blocks | 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 |
| Cloudflare-AutoRAG | blocks | named in its own group |
| CloudflareBrowserRenderingCrawler | 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 |
| Crawlspace | blocks | named in its own group |
| DeepSeekBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Devin | 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 |
| FacebookBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Factset_spyderbot | blocks | named in its own group |
| FirecrawlAgent | blocks | named in its own group |
| FriendlyCrawler | blocks | named in its own group |
| Gemini-Deep-Research | blocks | named in its own group |
| Google-Agent | blocks | named in its own group |
| Google-CloudVertexBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Google-NotebookLM | blocks | named in its own group |
| GoogleAgent-Mariner | blocks | named in its own group |
| GoogleOther | 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 |
| imageSpider | blocks | named in its own group |
| ISSCyberRiskCrawler | blocks | named in its own group |
| KlaviyoAIBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| laion-huggingface-processor | blocks | named in its own group |
| LCC | blocks | named in its own group |
| LinerBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| LinkupBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Manus-User | blocks | named in its own group |
| meta-externalfetcher | blocks | named in its own group |
| meta-webindexer | blocks | named in its own group |
| MistralAI-User | blocks | named in its own group |
| NovaAct | blocks | named in its own group |
| omgili | blocks | named in its own group |
| omgilibot | blocks | named in its own group |
| OpenAI | blocks | named in its own group |
| PanguBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| PetalBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| PhindBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Poggio-Citations | blocks | named in its own group |
| QualifiedBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| QuillBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| SBIntuitionsBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Scrapy | blocks | named in its own group |
| SemrushBot-OCOB | blocks | named in its own group |
| ShapBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Spider | blocks | named in its own group |
| TavilyBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| TikTokSpider | blocks | named in its own group |
| Timpibot | blocks | named in its own group |
| TwinAgent | blocks | named in its own group |
| VelenPublicWebCrawler | blocks | named in its own group |
| WARDBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| Webzio-Extended | blocks | named in its own group |
| YandexAdditional | blocks | named in its own group |
| YandexAdditionalBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| YouBot | blocks | named in its own group |
| ZanistaBot | blocks | named in its own group |
Other signals
| Publishes /llms.txt | not observed |
| Publishes /ai.txt | not observed |
| Publishes /.well-known/tdmrep.json | not observed |
| 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 ceefb39a917d94f1…
# robots.txt file for https://www.usatoday.com/ User-agent: anthropic-ai Disallow: / User-agent: AmazonBot Disallow: / User-agent: Claude-Web Disallow: / User-agent: cohere-ai Disallow: / User-agent: ClaudeBot Disallow: / User-agent: ChatGPT-User Disallow: / User-agent: Googlebot-News Disallow: /story/sponsor-story/ Disallow: /picture-gallery/sponsor-story/ Disallow: /videos/sponsor-story/ Disallow: /longform/sponsor-story/ Disallow: /pages/interactives/sponsor-story/ Disallow: /interactives/sponsor-story/ Disallow: /videos/embed/ User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: / User-agent: CCBot Disallow: / User-agent: Google-Extended Disallow: / User-agent: DataForSeoBot Disallow: / User-agent: Diffbot Disallow: / User-agent: FacebookBot Disallow: / User-agent: magpie-crawler Disallow: / User-agent: NewsNow Disallow: / User-agent: news-please Disallow: / User-agent: omgili Disallow: / User-agent: omgilibot Disallow: / User-agent: peer39_crawler Disallow: / User-agent: peer39_crawler/1.0 Disallow: / User-agent: PerplexityBot Disallow: / User-agent: Scrapy Disallow: / User-agent: TurnitinBot Disallow: / User-agent: Applebot-Extended Disallow: / User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent Disallow: / User-agent: meta-externalagent Disallow: / User-agent: OAI-SearchBot Disallow: / User-agent: Bytespider Disallow: / User-agent: Claude-User Disallow: / User-agent: Claude-SearchBot Disallow: / User-agent: AI2Bot Disallow: / User-agent: AhrefsBot Disallow: / User-agent: Ai2Bot-Dolma Disallow: / User-agent: Applebot Disallow: / User-agent: Arquivo-web-crawler Disallow: / User-agent: AspiegelBot Disallow: / User-agent: AwarioRssBot Disallow: / User-agent: AwarioSmartBot Disallow: / User-agent: Barkrowler Disallow: / User-agent: coccocbot-web Disallow: / User-agent: cohere-training-data-crawler Disallow: / User-agent: crawler4j Disallow: / User-agent: Crawlspace Disallow: / User-agent: dotbot Disallow: / User-agent: DuckAssistBot Disallow: / User-agent: FriendlyCrawler Disallow: / User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot Disallow: / User-agent: https://hada.news Disallow: / User-agent: https://www.imediaethics.org Disallow: / User-agent: iaskspider/2.0 Disallow: / User-agent: ICC-Crawler Disallow: / User-agent: ImagesiftBot Disallow: / User-agent: img2dataset Disallow: / User-agent: ISSCyberRiskCrawler Disallow: / User-agent: JenkersBot Disallow: / User-agent: Kangaroo Bot Disallow: / User-agent: LivelapBot Disallow: / User-agent: MauiBot Disallow: / User-agent: Meltwater Disallow: / User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher Disallow: / User-agent: MJ12bot Disallow: / User-agent: Mojeek Disallow: / User-agent: MojeekBot Disallow: / User-agent: MoodleBot Disallow: / User-agent: NeticleBot Disallow: / User-agent: Netvibes Disallow: / User-agent: PanguBot Disallow: / User-agent: PetalBot Disallow: / User-agent: SeekportBot Disallow: / User-agent: Seekr Disallow: / User-agent: SemrushBot Disallow: / User-agent: SeznamBot Disallow: / User-agent: Sidetrade Indexer Bot Disallow: / User-agent: Timpibot Disallow: / User-agent: Turnitin Disallow: / User-agent: VelenPublicWebCrawler Disallow: / User-agent: Webzio-Extended Disallow: / User-agent: yacy Disallow: / User-agent: yacybot Disallow: / User-agent: Yandex Disallow: / User-agent: YandexAdditional Disallow: / User-agent: YandexAdditionalBot Disallow: / User-agent: YouBot Disallow: / User-agent: ia_archiver Disallow: / User-agent: archive.org_bot Disallow: / User-agent: ia_archiver-web.archive.org Disallow: / User-agent: aiHitBot Disallow: / User-agent: Amazon Kendra Disallow: / User-agent: Big Sur AI Disallow: / User-agent: Brandwatch Disallow: / User-agent: Bravest Disallow: / User-agent: ChatGPT Operator Disallow: / User-agent: Cotoyogi Disallow: / User-agent: DigitalOceanGenAICrawler Disallow: / User-agent: Echobot Bot Disallow: / User-agent: EchoboxBot Disallow: / User-agent: Factset_spyderbot Disallow: / User-agent: Grok Disallow: / User-agent: iaskspider Disallow: / User-agent: ICC Crawler Disallow: / User-agent: imgproxy Disallow: / User-agent: LINER Bot Disallow: / User-agent: MistralAI-User Disallow: / User-agent: netEstate Imprint Crawler Disallow: / User-agent: NovaAct Disallow: / User-agent: QualifiedBot Disallow: / User-agent: SBIntuitionsBot Disallow: / User-agent: SemrushBot-OCOB Disallow: / User-agent: SemrushBotSwa Disallow: / User-agent: Sidetrade Disallow: / User-agent: TikTokSpider Disallow: / User-agent: WARDBot Disallow: / User-agent: * Disallow: /errors Disallow: /interactive/ Disallow: /userauth/ Disallow: /ugc/ Disallow: /feeds/ Disallow: /services/ Disallow: /facebook/ Disallow: /version-info/ Disallow: /longform/draft/ Disallow: /story/draft/ Disallow: /topic/*/smart/ Disallow: /search Disallow: /module-showcase/ Disallow: /newsletter/ Disallow: /blended-newsletter/ Disallow: /story/nletter/ Disallow: /sports/services/photos/ Disallow: /optimus Disallow: /ux-train Disallow: /story/advisory/ Disallow: /.cam-tangent/ Disallow: /pbd/ Disallow: /gciaf/ Disallow: /gcdn/gciaf/ Disallow: /dcc/ Disallow: /gcdn/dcc/ Disallow: /dc/ Disallow: /gcdn/dc/ Disallow: /dcjs/ Disallow: /gcdn/dcjs/ Disallow: /content-queries/ Disallow: /zxc/ Disallow: /money/homefront/ Disallow: /exp-cruise Disallow: /exp-las-vegas2 Disallow: /exp-faw Disallow: /exp-caribbean Disallow: /exp-beach Disallow: /exp-cruise2 Disallow: /yourtake Disallow: /story/sports/ncaab/2014/03/20/ge-cfo-challenge-daniel-kelly-amfam/6661213/ Disallow: /story/2014/03/20/ge-cfo-challenge-david-bartlett-amway/6653003/ Disallow: /story/sports/ncaab/2014/03/20/ge-cfo-challenge-art-mccarthy-neulion/6655521/ Disallow: /story/sports/ncaab/2014/03/20/ge-cfo-challenge-david-gross-major-league-lacrosse/6646987/ Disallow: /money/lookup/stocks/ Disallow: /money/blueprint/archive/ Disallow: /money/blueprint/transfer?pname= Sitemap: https://www.usatoday.com/news-sitemap.xml Sitemap: https://www.usatoday.com/web-sitemap-index.xml Sitemap: https://www.usatoday.com/video-sitemap-index.xml Sitemap: https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/sitemap.xml Sitemap: https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/sitemap-news.xml Sitemap: https://www.usatoday.com/online-betting/sitemap.xml Sitemap: https://www.usatoday.com/online-betting/news-sitemap.xml
robots.txt versions
| From | Through | State | Version | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-26 | 2026-10-27 | ok 200 | 7ac5cfceb70a |
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.usatoday.com | ok view | blocks | blocks | unknown | blocks | blocks | unknown | blocks |
| 2025-09-15 CC-MAIN-2025-38 | www.usatoday.com | ok view | blocks | blocks | unknown | blocks | blocks | unknown | blocks |
| 2024-09-16 CC-MAIN-2024-38 | www.usatoday.com | ok view | blocks | blocks | unknown | blocks | allows | unknown | blocks |
| 2023-10-02 CC-MAIN-2023-40 | www.usatoday.com | ok view | blocks | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2022-10-03 CC-MAIN-2022-40 | www.usatoday.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2021-09-27 CC-MAIN-2021-39 | www.usatoday.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2020-09-28 CC-MAIN-2020-40 | www.usatoday.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2019-09-23 CC-MAIN-2019-39 | www.usatoday.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2018-09-24 CC-MAIN-2018-39 | www.usatoday.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2018-01-29 CC-MAIN-2018-05 | usatoday.com | redirect-only | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2017-10-23 CC-MAIN-2017-43 | usatoday.com | redirect-only | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2017-09-25 CC-MAIN-2017-39 | usatoday.com | redirect-only | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2017-07-24 CC-MAIN-2017-30 | usatoday.com | redirect-only | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2017-04-24 CC-MAIN-2017-17 | usatoday.com | redirect-only | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
| 2017-01-23 CC-MAIN-2017-04 | usatoday.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2016-10-03 CC-MAIN-2016-40 | usatoday.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
| 2016-09-05 CC-MAIN-2016-36 | usatoday.com | ok view | allows | allows | unknown | allows | allows | unknown | allows |
Evidence
Every daily observation of usatoday.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/usatoday.com