Does ibm.com block AI crawlers?
Open to AI crawlers
ibm.com doesn't block any of the major AI crawlers we track in its robots.txt.
Checked from ibm.com/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 500 (#287)
Can AI assistants cite ibm.com?
- 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
ibm.com 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 ibm.com |
|---|---|---|
| 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 ibm.com compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; ibm.com does not.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; ibm.com does not.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; ibm.com does not.
- Among 191 sites of similar popularity, 32% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: * Disallow: /account/registration Disallow: /account/mypro Disallow: /account/myint Disallow: /Admin Disallow: /cgi- Disallow: /contact/employees/servlets Disallow: /data/ Disallow: /db2s Disallow: /developerworks/*-pdf.pdf$ Disallow: /developerworks/forums/servlet Disallow: /developerworks/forums/abuse Disallow: /developerworks/forums/post Disallow: /docs/api Disallow: /fcgi- Disallow: /fscripts Disallow: /image Disallow: /mashupmaker Disallow: /mysupport/s/forumshome Disallow: /mysupport/s/forumsproduct Disallow: /mysupport/s/forumsquestion Disallow: /partnerworld/portal Disallow: /portal/home Disallow: /products/finder Disallow: /profiles Disallow: /scripts Disallow: /Scripts Disallow: /search/? Disallow: /Search Disallow: /smartmarket/*/productListInitial.action? Disallow: /standards Disallow: /support/knowledgecenter/api Disallow: /support/knowledgecenter/v1 Disallow: /survey Disallow: /testing Disallow: /tmp Disallow: /vrm/bin/sendThisPage Disallow: /webmaster Disallow: /zx Disallow: /zz Disallow: /*.ssi$
Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.
Sites with a similar AI policy
Does ibm.com block GPTBot?
No. As of Oct 2, 2026, ibm.com's robots.txt doesn't block GPTBot, though some paths are restricted for all crawlers.
Can ChatGPT search show results from ibm.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 ibm.com have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at ibm.com/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: ibm.com's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.