Does chess.com block AI crawlers?
Open to AI crawlers
chess.com doesn't block any of the major AI crawlers we track in its robots.txt.
Checked from chess.com/robots.txt. Robots rules change; the live file is the source of truth.
- AI crawlers blocked
- 0 of 12
- AI bots named in robots.txt
- 0
- llms.txt
- Not found
- Popularity
- Tranco top 1,000 (#872)
Can AI assistants cite chess.com?
- ChatGPT search: its search crawlers may read the site
- Claude: its search crawlers may read the site
- Perplexity: its search crawlers may read the site
chess.com doesn't opt out of AI model training through robots.txt. Training crawlers and answer crawlers are separate: blocking training doesn't by itself remove a site from AI answers.
AI crawler access, bot by bot
| Crawler | Used for | Status on chess.com |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBotOpenAI | AI training | Some paths restricted |
| OAI-SearchBotOpenAI | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| ChatGPT-UserOpenAI | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| ClaudeBotAnthropic | AI training | Some paths restricted |
| Claude-SearchBotAnthropic | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| Claude-UserAnthropic | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| PerplexityBotPerplexity | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| Google-ExtendedGoogle | AI training | Some paths restricted |
| Applebot-ExtendedApple | AI training | Some paths restricted |
| CCBotCommon Crawl | AI training | Some paths restricted |
| BytespiderByteDance | AI training | Some paths restricted |
| Meta-ExternalAgentMeta | AI training | Some paths restricted |
How chess.com compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; chess.com does not.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; chess.com does not.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; chess.com does not.
- Among 201 sites of similar popularity, 31% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: * Disallow: /_ Disallow: /en/ Disallow: /cdn-cgi/ Disallow: /admin Disallow: /developers Disallow: /download/pgn Disallow: /fb Disallow: /home/ Disallow: /logout Disallow: /message Disallow: /settings Disallow: /switch Disallow: /unsubscribe Disallow: /webhook Disallow: /callback/ Disallow: /service/ Disallow: /password-management Disallow: /club/*/join/ Disallow: /login_ Disallow: /login_and_go Disallow: /payment/ Disallow: /games/archive Disallow: /games/search Disallow: /topic/ Disallow: /awards/ Disallow: /stats/ Disallow: /game/ Disallow: /register?returnUrl= User-agent: * Disallow: /*/login_ Disallow: /*/login_and_go Disallow: /*/payment/ Disallow: /*/games/archive Disallow: /*/games/search Disallow: /*/topic/ Disallow: /*/awards/ Disallow: /*/stats/ Disallow: /*/game/ Disallow: /*/register?returnUrl=
Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.
Sites with a similar AI policy
Does chess.com block GPTBot?
No. As of Oct 2, 2026, chess.com's robots.txt doesn't block GPTBot, though some paths are restricted for all crawlers.
Can ChatGPT search show results from chess.com?
Its robots.txt doesn't block OAI-SearchBot or ChatGPT-User, so ChatGPT's search crawlers may read it. Whether pages are actually shown depends on ChatGPT.
Does chess.com have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at chess.com/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: chess.com's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.