Checks / AI crawler access
robots.txt blocks CCBot
Blocks CCBot (Common Crawl), which collects training data. This keeps your pages out of future model training, not out of ChatGPT or other AI search.
robots_ccbot · AI crawler access · Notice
What triggers it
robots.txt does not let CCBot fetch your home page (a Disallow rule in its own group, or in the * group when no group names it), and it leaves no other path open for it.
What to change
Only if you want your pages in open training datasets: remove the Disallow rule for CCBot.
Example
Lines that allow CCBot in robots.txt:
User-agent: CCBot
Allow: /How to confirm the fix
- Open https://example.com/robots.txt: no group that names CCBot (or the * group, if none does) disallows the home page
- Run a new crawl: the AI crawler table lists CCBot as allowed
About CCBot
CCBot is the crawler of Common Crawl, a non-profit that maintains an open repository of web crawl data anyone can access and analyze. Common Crawl says User-agent: CCBot with Disallow: / stops it crawling a site. It also warns that other crawlers falsely identify themselves as CCBot, so verify requests.
Common Crawl says that adding User-agent: CCBot with Disallow: / to robots.txt prevents Common Crawl from crawling the site. The page also says it is aware of crawlers falsely identifying themselves as CCBot and recommends verifying user agent strings.
Job: Open web crawl archive. Follows robots.txt: Yes, via a robots.txt rule for CCBot.
CCBot: operator, user-agent string and address list
How common it is
On a sample, the study measured robots.txt blocking CCBot on the homepage's site: 11 of 294 Show HN sites (4%), and 0 of 67 Lovable sites (0%).
Fetched 20 and 21 Oct 2026 as CitedBot, robots.txt obeyed, no JavaScript. Study: Launch crawl 2026-10 (English).
About this check
| Check ID | robots_ccbot |
|---|---|
| Report section | AI crawler access |
| Severity | Notice |
| How it is decided | Measured: read directly from the page or the server's response. |
| Added | Before 19 Oct 2026 (versions 1 and 2), or a site-wide check with no version date yet |
| Status | Measured in every report |
| Report gives the code | Yes, one block for the site |
Settings by platform
For robots.txt, where the setting lives differs by platform. Our guides cover 13 of them: AI crawler settings by platform.
Related checks
- llms.txt points at pages that crawlers cannot use
- No llms.txt (optional)
- robots.txt blocks ClaudeBot
- robots.txt blocks Google-Extended
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