Does gutenberg.org block AI crawlers?
Open to AI crawlers
gutenberg.org doesn't block any of the major AI crawlers we track in its robots.txt.
Checked from gutenberg.org/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 5,000 (#2,691)
Can AI assistants cite gutenberg.org?
- 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
gutenberg.org 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 gutenberg.org |
|---|---|---|
| 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 gutenberg.org compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; gutenberg.org does not.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; gutenberg.org does not.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; gutenberg.org does not.
- Among 187 sites of similar popularity, 24% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: * Disallow: /ebooks/search
Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.
Sites with a similar AI policy
Does gutenberg.org block GPTBot?
No. As of Oct 2, 2026, gutenberg.org's robots.txt doesn't block GPTBot, though some paths are restricted for all crawlers.
Can ChatGPT search show results from gutenberg.org?
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 gutenberg.org have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at gutenberg.org/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: gutenberg.org's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.