Does medium.com block AI crawlers?
Blocks AI training, allows AI answers
medium.com blocks at least one AI training crawler but still lets AI answer engines read its pages.
Checked from medium.com/robots.txt. Robots rules change; the live file is the source of truth.
- AI crawlers blocked
- 5 of 12
- AI bots named in robots.txt
- 5
- llms.txt
- Not found
- Popularity
- Tranco top 500 (#202)
Can AI assistants cite medium.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
medium.com opts out of AI training by OpenAI, Anthropic, Apple, 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 medium.com |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBotOpenAI | AI training | Blocked |
| 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 | Some paths restricted |
| Google-ExtendedGoogle | AI training | Some paths restricted |
| Applebot-ExtendedApple | AI training | Blocked |
| CCBotCommon Crawl | AI training | Some paths restricted |
| BytespiderByteDance | AI training | Blocked |
| Meta-ExternalAgentMeta | AI training | Blocked |
How medium.com compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; medium.com is one of them.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; medium.com is one of them.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; medium.com does not.
- Among 176 sites of similar popularity, 34% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: * Disallow: /m/ Disallow: /me/ Disallow: /@me$ Disallow: /@me/ Disallow: /*/edit$ Disallow: /*/*/edit$ Disallow: /media/ Disallow: /p/*/share Disallow: /r/ Disallow: /trending Disallow: /search?q$ Disallow: /search?q= Disallow: /*/search?q= Disallow: /*/search/*?q= Disallow: /*/*source= Allow: /_/api/users/*/meta Allow: /_/api/users/*/profile/stream Allow: /_/api/posts/*/responses Allow: /_/api/posts/*/responsesStream Allow: /_/api/posts/*/related User-agent: Amazonbot User-agent: Applebot-Extended User-agent: Bytespider User-agent: ClaudeBot User-agent: FacebookBot User-agent: GoogleOther User-agent: GPTBot User-agent: meta-externalagent Disallow: / Allow: /about Allow: /business Allow: /earn Allow: /gift Allow: /membership Allow: /partner-program Allow: /verified-authors
Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.
Sites with a similar AI policy
- flickr.com · 7 blocked
- canva.com · 6 blocked
- gravatar.com · 4 blocked
- unity3d.com · 1 blocked
- who.int · 1 blocked
- linktr.ee · 2 blocked
- snapchat.com · 7 blocked
- forter.com · 3 blocked
All sites that are “blocks ai training, allows ai answers” →
Does medium.com block GPTBot?
Yes. As of Oct 2, 2026, medium.com's robots.txt disallows GPTBot, OpenAI's training crawler.
Can ChatGPT search show results from medium.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 medium.com have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at medium.com/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: medium.com's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.