Does forbes.com block AI crawlers?
Blocks AI training and AI answers
forbes.com blocks both AI training crawlers and AI answer crawlers in its robots.txt.
Checked from forbes.com/robots.txt. Robots rules change; the live file is the source of truth.
- AI crawlers blocked
- 7 of 12
- AI bots named in robots.txt
- 11
- llms.txt
- Not found
- Popularity
- Tranco top 500 (#222)
Can AI assistants cite forbes.com?
- ChatGPT search: its search crawlers may read the site
- Claude: its search crawlers may read the site
- Perplexity: its search crawler is blocked
forbes.com opts out of AI training by OpenAI, Anthropic, Apple, Common Crawl, ByteDance, Meta. 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 forbes.com |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBotOpenAI | AI training | Blocked |
| OAI-SearchBotOpenAI | AI answers | Allowed |
| ChatGPT-UserOpenAI | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| ClaudeBotAnthropic | AI training | Blocked |
| Claude-SearchBotAnthropic | AI answers | Allowed |
| Claude-UserAnthropic | AI answers | Allowed |
| PerplexityBotPerplexity | AI answers | Blocked |
| Google-ExtendedGoogle | AI training | Some paths restricted |
| Applebot-ExtendedApple | AI training | Blocked |
| CCBotCommon Crawl | AI training | Blocked |
| BytespiderByteDance | AI training | Blocked |
| Meta-ExternalAgentMeta | AI training | Blocked |
How forbes.com compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; forbes.com is one of them.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; forbes.com is one of them.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; forbes.com is one of them.
- Among 184 sites of similar popularity, 34% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: * Allow: /ajax/follow_info* Allow: /ajax/getUniregUserData* Disallow: /following/ Disallow: /search/ Disallow: /follow/ Disallow: /ajax/ Disallow: /author/following/ Disallow: /blog/following/ Disallow: /json/ Disallow: /header/channels/ Disallow: /find-more/ Disallow: /preview/ Disallow: *wp-admin* Disallow: /typeahead/ Disallow: /pepe/ Disallow: /media-manager/ Disallow: /coupons/visit/* Disallow: /test/ Disallow: /advisor/*zx1fa* Disallow: /advisor/journey/ Disallow: /wui/ Disallow: /research-survey User-agent: anthropic-ai Disallow: / User-agent: Applebot-Extended Disallow: / User-agent: Bytespider Disallow: / User-agent: CCBot User-agent: CCbot Disallow: / User-agent: ClaudeBot Disallow: / User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: / User-agent: meta-externalagent User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent Disallow: / User-agent: OAI-SearchBot Allow: / User-agent: PerplexityBot Disallow: / User-agent: Claude-User User-agent: Claude-SearchBot Allow: /
Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.
Sites with a similar AI policy
Does forbes.com block GPTBot?
Yes. As of Oct 2, 2026, forbes.com's robots.txt disallows GPTBot, OpenAI's training crawler.
Can ChatGPT search show results from forbes.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 forbes.com have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at forbes.com/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: forbes.com's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.