Does newscientist.com block AI crawlers?

Can AI assistants cite newscientist.com?

• ChatGPT search: its search crawler is blocked
• Claude: its search crawler is blocked
• Perplexity: its search crawler is blocked

newscientist.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

How newscientist.com compares

• 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; newscientist.com is one of them.
• 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; newscientist.com is one of them.
• 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; newscientist.com is one of them.
• Among 173 sites of similar popularity, 25% block at least one AI crawler.

The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers

User-agent: AhrefsBot
User-agent: AI2Bot
User-agent: Ai2Bot-Dolma
User-agent: Amazonbot
User-agent: amazon-kendra-
User-agent: anthropic-ai
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
User-agent: bedrockbot
User-agent: Bytespider
User-agent: CloudflareBrowserRenderingCrawler
User-agent: CCBot
User-agent: ChatGLM-Spider
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
User-agent: ClaudeBot
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
User-agent: Claude-User
User-agent: Claude-Web
User-agent: cohere-ai
User-agent: Cotoyogi
User-agent: DeepSeekBot
User-agent: Diffbot
User-agent: DuckAssistBot
User-agent: EchoboxBot
User-agent: FacebookBot
User-agent: FriendlyCrawler
User-agent: Gemini-Deep-Research
User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot
User-agent: Google-Extended
User-agent: GoogleOther
User-agent: GoogleOther-Image
User-agent: GoogleOther-Video
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: Grok
User-agent: iaskspider/2.0
User-agent: ICC-Crawler
User-agent: ImagesiftBot
User-agent: img2dataset
User-agent: ISSCyberRiskCrawler
User-agent: Kangaroo Bot
User-agent: KunatoCrawler
User-agent: LinerBot
User-agent: Meltwater
User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher
User-agent: MistralAI-User
User-agent: OAI-Operator
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: omgili
User-agent: omgilibot
User-agent: PanguBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
User-agent: Perplexity-User
User-agent: PetalBot
User-agent: QualifiedBot
User-agent: Scrapy
User-agent: Seekr
User-agent: Sidetrade indexer bot
User-agent: TaraGroup Intelligent Bot
User-agent: TikTokSpider
User-agent: Timpibot
User-agent: VelenPublicWebCrawler
User-agent: WARDBot
User-agent: Webzio-Extended
User-agent: wpbot
User-agent: WRTNBot
User-agent: YouBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow: /21632812681/
Disallow: /activate-subscription/
Disallow: /feed/
Disallow: /login/
Disallow: /logout/
Disallow: /lost-password/
Disallow: /my-account/
Disallow: /registration/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /upfront/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /build/
Disallow: /nsj/jobsjson/
Disallow: /nsj/logon/
Disallow: /nsj/newalert/
Disallow: /nsj/analytics/
Disallow: /nsj/apply-profile/
Disallow: /nsj/document/
Disallow: /nsj/emailjob/
Disallow: /nsj/external-redirect-registration/
Disallow: /nsj/invalid-request/
Disallow: /nsj/jbequicksignup/
Disallow: /nsj/jobsrss/
Disallow: /nsj/previewjob/
Disallow: /nsj/searchjobs/
Disallow: /nsj/session-img/
Disallow: /nsj/your-jobs/
Disallow: /nsj/profile/
Disallow: /nsj/remindme/
Disallow: /nsj/searchjobs/

User-agent: *
Disallow: 

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

Sites with a similar AI policy

• ksapisrv.com · 12 blocked
• system-monitor.com · 12 blocked
• cell.com · 8 blocked
• huntress.io · 12 blocked
• grok.com · 6 blocked
• franceinfo.fr · 12 blocked
• salesforce-scrt.com · 12 blocked
• sueddeutsche.de · 5 blocked

All sites that are “blocks ai training and ai answers” →