Does ft.com block AI crawlers?
Blocks AI training and AI answers
ft.com blocks both AI training crawlers and AI answer crawlers in its robots.txt.
Checked from ft.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
- 8
- llms.txt
- Not found
- Popularity
- Tranco top 1,000 (#555)
Can AI assistants cite ft.com?
- ChatGPT search: its search crawlers may read the site
- Claude: its search crawlers may read the site
- Perplexity: its search crawler is blocked
ft.com opts out of AI training by Anthropic, Google, 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 ft.com |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBotOpenAI | AI training | Some paths restricted |
| OAI-SearchBotOpenAI | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| ChatGPT-UserOpenAI | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| ClaudeBotAnthropic | AI training | Blocked |
| Claude-SearchBotAnthropic | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| Claude-UserAnthropic | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| 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 | Blocked |
How ft.com compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; ft.com does not.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; ft.com is one of them.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; ft.com is one of them.
- Among 204 sites of similar popularity, 29% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: * Disallow: /__ Disallow: /_fs-ch Disallow: /article/e63d8640-eeb3-4473-b0ad-aa6aec16d9fe Disallow: /buy/ Disallow: /cancel/ Disallow: /join/ Disallow: /login Disallow: /myft Disallow: /offline/ Disallow: /page-resources Disallow: /preferences/manage-cookies Disallow: /register/ Disallow: /search Disallow: /signup Allow: /__origami/ Allow: /__assets/ User-agent: CCBot Disallow: / User-agent: Google-Extended Disallow: / Allow: /*?syn-25a6b1a6=1 User-agent: anthropic-ai Disallow: / User-agent: Bytespider Disallow: / User-agent: PerplexityBot Disallow: / User-agent: ClaudeBot Disallow: / User-agent: Applebot-Extended Disallow: / User-agent: meta-externalagent Disallow: /
Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.
Sites with a similar AI policy
Does ft.com block GPTBot?
No. As of Oct 2, 2026, ft.com's robots.txt doesn't block GPTBot, though some paths are restricted for all crawlers.
Can ChatGPT search show results from ft.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 ft.com have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at ft.com/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: ft.com's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.