Does economist.com block AI crawlers?
Blocks AI training and AI answers
economist.com blocks both AI training crawlers and AI answer crawlers in its robots.txt.
Checked from economist.com/robots.txt. Robots rules change; the live file is the source of truth.
- AI crawlers blocked
- 11 of 12
- AI bots named in robots.txt
- 12
- llms.txt
- Not found
- Popularity
- Tranco top 2,000 (#1,156)
Can AI assistants cite economist.com?
- ChatGPT search: its search crawler is blocked
- Claude: its search crawler is blocked
- Perplexity: its search crawler is blocked
economist.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
| Crawler | Used for | Status on economist.com |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBotOpenAI | AI training | Blocked |
| OAI-SearchBotOpenAI | AI answers | Blocked |
| ChatGPT-UserOpenAI | AI answers | Blocked |
| ClaudeBotAnthropic | AI training | Blocked |
| Claude-SearchBotAnthropic | AI answers | Blocked |
| Claude-UserAnthropic | AI answers | Blocked |
| PerplexityBotPerplexity | AI answers | Blocked |
| Google-ExtendedGoogle | AI training | Blocked |
| Applebot-ExtendedApple | AI training | Blocked |
| CCBotCommon Crawl | AI training | Blocked |
| BytespiderByteDance | AI training | Blocked |
| Meta-ExternalAgentMeta | AI training | Some paths restricted |
How economist.com compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; economist.com is one of them.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; economist.com is one of them.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; economist.com is one of them.
- Among 206 sites of similar popularity, 31% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: ChatGPT-User Allow: /pro$ Allow: /pro/ Allow: /syndication$ Allow: /syndication/ Disallow: / User-agent: Claude-SearchBot Allow: /pro$ Allow: /pro/ Allow: /syndication$ Allow: /syndication/ Disallow: / User-agent: Claude-User Allow: /pro$ Allow: /pro/ Allow: /syndication$ Allow: /syndication/ Disallow: / User-agent: PerplexityBot Allow: /pro$ Allow: /pro/ Allow: /syndication$ Allow: /syndication/ Disallow: / User-agent: OAI-SearchBot Allow: /pro$ Allow: /pro/ Allow: /syndication$ Allow: /syndication/ Disallow: / User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: / User-agent: Google-Extended Allow: /pro$ Allow: /pro/ Allow: /syndication$ Allow: /syndication/ Disallow: / User-agent: anthropic-ai Disallow: / User-agent: Applebot-Extended Disallow: / User-agent: Bytespider Disallow: / User-agent: CCBot Disallow: / User-agent: ClaudeBot Disallow: / User-agent: * Disallow: /5605/ Disallow: /pubads.g.doubleclick.net/ Disallow: /assets/infographic/ Disallow: /search/ Disallow: /search?q= Disallow: /graphql Disallow: /api Disallow: /subscribe/getstarted/ Disallow: /checkout Disallow: /switch* Disallow: /audio-edition-podcast/*/index.xml
Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.
Sites with a similar AI policy
Does economist.com block GPTBot?
Yes. As of Oct 2, 2026, economist.com's robots.txt disallows GPTBot, OpenAI's training crawler.
Can ChatGPT search show results from economist.com?
Its robots.txt blocks a ChatGPT search crawler, so ChatGPT search is unlikely to read or cite those pages.
Does economist.com have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at economist.com/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: economist.com's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.