Does cnn.com block AI crawlers?

Can AI assistants cite cnn.com?

• ChatGPT search: its search crawler is blocked
• Claude: its search crawler is blocked
• Perplexity: its search crawler is blocked

cnn.com opts out of AI training by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Apple, Common Crawl, ByteDance. 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

How cnn.com compares

• 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; cnn.com is one of them.
• 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; cnn.com is one of them.
• 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; cnn.com is one of them.
• Among 177 sites of similar popularity, 34% block at least one AI crawler.

The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers

User-agent: AI2Bot
User-agent: Ai2Bot-Dolma
User-agent: AliyunSecBot
User-agent: Amazonbot
User-agent: amzn-searchbot
User-agent: amzn-user
User-agent: anthropic-ai
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
User-agent: Archive.org_bot
User-agent: AwarioRssBot
User-agent: AwarioSmartBot
User-agent: Brightbot 1.0
User-agent: Bytespider
User-agent: CCBot
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
User-agent: ClaudeBot
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
User-agent: Claude-User
User-agent: Claude-Web
User-agent: cohere-ai
User-agent: cohere-training-data-crawler
User-agent: Crawlspace
User-agent: DataForSeoBot
User-agent: Diffbot
User-agent: DuckAssistBot
User-agent: EchoboxBot
User-agent: Exabot
User-agent: FacebookBot
User-agent: FriendlyCrawler
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: Google-Extended
User-agent: GoogleOther
User-agent: GoogleOther-Image
User-agent: GoogleOther-Video
User-agent: IAB-Tech-Lab
User-agent: iaskspider/2.0
User-agent: ICC-Crawler
User-agent: img2dataset
User-agent: ISSCyberRiskCrawler
User-agent: ImagesiftBot
User-agent: Kangaroo Bot
User-agent: magpie-crawler
User-agent: MistralAI-user
User-agent: MyCentralAIScraperBot
User-agent: NewsNow
User-agent: news-please
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: omgili
User-agent: omgilibot
User-agent: PanguBot
User-agent: Panscient
User-agent: PiplBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
User-agent: Perplexity-User
User-agent: PetalBot
User-agent: Poseidon Research Crawler
User-agent: QuillBot
User-agent: quillbot.com
User-agent: Quora-Bot
User-agent: SBIntuitionsBot
User-agent: Scrapy
User-agent: SeekrBot
User-agent: SemrushBot-OCOB
User-agent: SemrushBot-SWA
User-agent: SeznamHomepageCrawler
User-agent: ShapBot
User-agent: Shap-User
User-agent: Sidetrade indexer bot
User-agent: TaraGroup Intelligence Bot
User-agent: Timpibot
User-agent: TurnitinBot
User-agent: VelenPublicWebCrawler
User-agent: ViennaTinyBot
User-agent: Webzio-Extended
User-agent: YandexAdditional
User-agent: YandexAdditionalBot
User-agent: YouBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: *
Allow: /partners/ipad/live-video.json
Disallow: /*.jsx$
Disallow: *.jsx$
Disallow: /*.jsx/
Disallow: *.jsx?
Disallow: /ads/
Disallow: /aol/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /beta/
Disallow: /browsers/
Disallow: /cl/
Disallow: /cnews/
Disallow: /cnn_adspaces
Disallow: /cnnbeta/
Disallow: /cnnintl_adspaces
Disallow: /development
Disallow: /editionssi
Disallow: /help/cnnx.html
Disallow: /NewsPass
Disallow: /NOKIA
Disallow: /partners/
Disallow: /pipeline/
Disallow: /pointroll/
Disallow: /POLLSERVER/
Disallow: /pr/
Disallow: /PV/
Disallow: /Quickcast/
Disallow: /quickcast/
Disallow: /QUICKNEWS/
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /subscriptions/video-docs
Disallow: /terms
Disallow: /test/
Disallow: /virtual/
Disallow: /WEB-INF/
Disallow: /web.projects/
Disallow: /webview/

Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.

Sites with a similar AI policy

• theguardian.com · 8 blocked
• ebay.com · 7 blocked
• t-online.de · 7 blocked
• soundcloud.com · 10 blocked
• forbes.com · 7 blocked
• bbc.com · 10 blocked
• meraki.com · 11 blocked
• nytimes.com · 12 blocked

All sites that are “blocks ai training and ai answers” →