Does nature.com block AI crawlers?
Blocks AI training and AI answers
nature.com blocks both AI training crawlers and AI answer crawlers in its robots.txt.
Checked from nature.com/robots.txt. Robots rules change; the live file is the source of truth.
- AI crawlers blocked
- 9 of 12
- AI bots named in robots.txt
- 10
- llms.txt
- Not found
- Popularity
- Tranco top 500 (#305)
Can AI assistants cite nature.com?
- ChatGPT search: its search crawler is blocked
- Claude: its search crawlers may read the site
- Perplexity: its search crawler is blocked
nature.com opts out of AI training by OpenAI, 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 nature.com |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBotOpenAI | AI training | Blocked |
| OAI-SearchBotOpenAI | AI answers | Some paths restricted |
| ChatGPT-UserOpenAI | AI answers | Blocked |
| 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 nature.com compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; nature.com is one of them.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; nature.com is one of them.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; nature.com is one of them.
- Among 191 sites of similar popularity, 31% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: * Disallow: /search Disallow: */1000$ Disallow: /*/*/*/pf/ Disallow: /*.otmi$ Disallow: /*/*/*/*/otmi/ Disallow: /*/*/*/*/fp/ Disallow: /protocolexchange/labgroups/ Disallow: /naturecareers/jobs/search Disallow: /webcasts/* Disallow: /*draft=* Disallow: /*foxtrotcallback=* Disallow: /*origin=* Disallow: /my-account Disallow: /*proof=t%2Btarget%3D\* Disallow: /*proof=* Disallow: /*/figures Disallow: /*/tables Disallow: /*/schemes Disallow: /*/structures Disallow: /*/metrics Disallow: /*/save-research Disallow: /*/saved-research Disallow: /saved-research Disallow: /platform/contextual Disallow: /articles/*.ris Disallow: /nature-index/article-api/ Disallow: /nature-index/articles/saudi-arabia Disallow: /nature-index/articles/saudi-arabia-altmetric Disallow: /nature-index/city-maps/ Disallow: /nature-index/country-outputs-api/ Disallow: /nature-index/country-suggestion Disallow: /nature-index/country-suggestion/news-archive Disallow: /nature-index/global-city-map/data Disallow: /nature-index/institution-outputs-api/ Disallow: /nature-index/institution-suggestion Disallow: /nature-index/institution-suggestion/news-archive Disallow: /naturecareers/session-img/ Disallow: /naturecareers/jobsrss/ Disallow: /nature-index/annual-tables/export/ Disallow: /nature-index/country-outputs/export/ User-agent: anthropic-ai Disallow: / User-agent: Applebot-Extended Disallow: / User-agent: Bytespider Disallow: / User-agent: CCBot Disallow: / User-agent: ClaudeBot Disallow: / User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: / User-agent: Google-Extended Disallow: / User-agent: PerplexityBot Disallow: / User-agent: meta-externalagent Disallow: / User-agent: ChatGPT-User 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 nature.com block GPTBot?
Yes. As of Oct 2, 2026, nature.com's robots.txt disallows GPTBot, OpenAI's training crawler.
Can ChatGPT search show results from nature.com?
Its robots.txt blocks a ChatGPT search crawler, so ChatGPT search is unlikely to read or cite those pages.
Does nature.com have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at nature.com/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: nature.com's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.