Does meetup.com block AI crawlers?

Can AI assistants cite meetup.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

meetup.com opts out of AI training by OpenAI. 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

How meetup.com compares

• 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; meetup.com is one of them.
• 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; meetup.com does not.
• 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; meetup.com does not.
• Among 174 sites of similar popularity, 25% block at least one AI crawler.

The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers

User-agent: *
Disallow: /files/
Disallow: /fb/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /n/*

User-agent: *
Disallow: */calendar/*atom*
Disallow: */calendar/*rss*
Disallow: */calendar/*xml*

User-agent: *
Disallow: */events/atom/*
Disallow: */events/rss/*
Disallow: */events/xml/*

User-agent: *
Disallow: */rsvps/*atom*
Disallow: */rsvps/*rss*
Disallow: */rsvps/*xml*

User-agent: *
Disallow: */newest/*atom*
Disallow: */newest/*rss*
Disallow: */newest/*xml*

User-agent: *
Disallow: /meetup_api/?
Disallow: /meetup_api?
Disallow: /*/meetup_api/
Disallow: /*/meetup_api?
Disallow: /*/meetup_api$

User-agent: *
Disallow: /api/?
Disallow: /api?
Disallow: /*/api/
Disallow: /*/api?
Disallow: /*/api$

User-agent: *
Disallow: */report_abuse/*

User-agent: *
Disallow: /*?keywords=*
Disallow: /*&keywords=*
Disallow: /*?source=*
Disallow: /*&source=*
Disallow: /*?distance=*
Disallow: /*&distance=*
Disallow: /*?dateRange=*
Disallow: /*&dateRange=*
Disallow: /*?eventType=*
Disallow: /*&eventType=*
Disallow: /*?sortField=*
Disallow: /*&sortField=*
Disallow: /*?categoryId=*
Disallow: /*&categoryId=*
Disallow: /*?s=*
Disallow: /*?utf8=*
Disallow: /*&s=*
Disallow: /*&utf8=*
Disallow: /*?_af_cid=*
Disallow: /*?_cookie-check=*
Disallow: /*?_locale=*
Disallow: /*?albumsOffset=*
Disallow: /*?chapter_analytics_code=*
Disallow: /*?delete_id=*
Disallow: /*?edit_id=*
Disallow: /*?err=*
Disallow: /*?errors=*
Disallow: /*?fbclid=*
Disallow: /*?forumId=*
Disallow: /*?mv=*
Disallow: /*?op=*
Disallow: /*?pager.offset=*
Disallow: /*?photoAlbumId=*
Disallow: /*?post=*
Disallow: /*?returnPage=*
Disallow: /*?search_forum=*
Disallow: /*?set_mobile=*
Disallow: /*?showAllGroups=*
Disallow: /*?sort=*
Disallow: /*?sortBy=*

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.

Sites with a similar AI policy

• strava.com · 4 blocked
• diretta.it · 3 blocked
• pnas.org · 1 blocked
• euronews.com · 3 blocked
• gizmodo.com · 3 blocked
• oreilly.com · 4 blocked
• fliphtml5.com · 3 blocked
• proofpoint.com · 1 blocked

All sites that are “blocks ai training, allows ai answers” →