whatsapp.com: what it tells AI crawlers

On 26 October 2026, whatsapp.com's robots.txt fully blocked GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and PerplexityBot.

Last verified 2026-10-26 21:13 UTC (daily run of 2026-10-26). Proof for that day.

Panel
top 1k (Tranco)
robots.txt
ok (HTTP 200) · https://www.whatsapp.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha256 b0dc29a03f811635… · view as recorded
The * group
allows applies to every agent without its own group

Per AI bot, 2026-10-26

User agentVerdictHow
GPTBotblocksnamed in its own group
OAI-SearchBotallowsthrough the * group
ChatGPT-Userallowsthrough the * group
ClaudeBotblocksnamed in its own group
Claude-SearchBotallowsthrough the * group
Claude-Userallowsthrough the * group
PerplexityBotblocksnamed in its own group
Perplexity-Userallowsthrough the * group
Googlebotallowsthrough the * group
Google-Extendedblocksnamed in its own group
Applebot-Extendedblocksnamed in its own group
CCBotallowsthrough the * group
Bytespiderallowsthrough the * group
Meta-ExternalAgentallowsthrough the * group
Amazonbotblocksnamed in its own group
Brightbotblocksnamed in its own group
facebookexternalhitallowsnamed in its own group
PetalBotblocksnamed in its own group
Scrapyblocksnamed in its own group
YaKblocksnamed in its own group

Other signals

Publishes /llms.txtno
Publishes /ai.txtno
Publishes /.well-known/tdmrep.jsonno
Reserves TDM rights (TDMRep file, header or meta)no
Declares Content Signals (robots.txt or header)no
Says ai-train=no in a Content Signalno
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 directivesno
Refused our fetcher (403 / challenge)no

robots.txt versions

FromThroughStateVersion
2026-10-262026-10-27ok 200b0dc29a03f81

Timeline of changes

DateWhat 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.

CrawlHostStateGPTBotOAI-SearchBotChatGPT-UserClaudeBotClaude-SearchBotClaude-UserPerplexityBot
2026-09-21 CC-MAIN-2026-39www.whatsapp.comok viewblocksallowsunknownblocksallowsunknownblocks
2024-09-16 CC-MAIN-2024-38www.whatsapp.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2022-10-03 CC-MAIN-2022-40www.whatsapp.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2021-09-27 CC-MAIN-2021-39www.whatsapp.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2020-09-28 CC-MAIN-2020-40www.whatsapp.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2019-09-23 CC-MAIN-2019-39www.whatsapp.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2018-09-24 CC-MAIN-2018-39www.whatsapp.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2017-09-25 CC-MAIN-2017-39www.whatsapp.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2016-09-05 CC-MAIN-2016-36whatsapp.comsoft404unknownunknownunknownunknownunknownunknownunknown

Evidence

Every daily observation of whatsapp.com is a leaf in that day's Merkle tree. Proof of the robots.txt line for 2026-10-26: audit path (JSON), day root and OpenTimestamps proof (complete (bitcoin block 973294)).

API: https://infrarabbit.com/crawlers/api/v1/policy/whatsapp.com