Does www.gov.uk block AI crawlers?
Open to AI crawlers
www.gov.uk doesn't block any of the major AI crawlers we track in its robots.txt.
Checked from www.gov.uk/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
- 1
- llms.txt
- Not found
- Popularity
- Tranco top 500 (#307)
Can AI assistants cite www.gov.uk?
- 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
www.gov.uk 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 www.gov.uk |
|---|---|---|
| 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 www.gov.uk compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; www.gov.uk does not.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; www.gov.uk does not.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; www.gov.uk does not.
- Among 192 sites of similar popularity, 31% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: * Disallow: /*/print$ Disallow: /search/all* User-agent: meta-externalagent Disallow: /search/all*
Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.
Sites with a similar AI policy
Does www.gov.uk block GPTBot?
No. As of Oct 2, 2026, www.gov.uk's robots.txt doesn't block GPTBot, though some paths are restricted for all crawlers.
Can ChatGPT search show results from www.gov.uk?
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 www.gov.uk have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at www.gov.uk/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: www.gov.uk's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.