Does ycombinator.com block AI crawlers?
Open to AI crawlers
ycombinator.com doesn't block any of the major AI crawlers we track in its robots.txt.
Checked from ycombinator.com/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
- 0
- llms.txt
- Not found
- Popularity
- Tranco top 5,000 (#2,333)
Can AI assistants cite ycombinator.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
ycombinator.com 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 ycombinator.com |
|---|---|---|
| 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 ycombinator.com compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; ycombinator.com does not.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; ycombinator.com does not.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; ycombinator.com does not.
- Among 190 sites of similar popularity, 20% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: * Disallow: /verify/* Disallow: /library?categories=*&* Allow: /library?categories=* Disallow: /library?* Disallow: /companies?* Allow: /
Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.
Sites with a similar AI policy
Does ycombinator.com block GPTBot?
No. As of Oct 2, 2026, ycombinator.com's robots.txt doesn't block GPTBot, though some paths are restricted for all crawlers.
Can ChatGPT search show results from ycombinator.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 ycombinator.com have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at ycombinator.com/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: ycombinator.com's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.