Does youtube.com block AI crawlers?
Open to AI crawlers
youtube.com doesn't block any of the major AI crawlers we track in its robots.txt.
Checked from youtube.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 100 (#9)
Can AI assistants cite youtube.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
youtube.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 youtube.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 youtube.com compares
- 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; youtube.com does not.
- 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; youtube.com does not.
- 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; youtube.com does not.
- Among 91 sites of similar popularity, 38% block at least one AI crawler.
The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers
User-agent: * Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /channel_picker Disallow: /comment Disallow: /feeds/videos.xml Disallow: /file_download Disallow: /get_video Disallow: /get_video_info Disallow: /get_midroll_info Disallow: /live_chat Disallow: /login Disallow: /qr Disallow: /results Disallow: /signup Disallow: /t/terms Disallow: /timedtext_video Disallow: /verify_age Disallow: /watch_ajax Disallow: /watch_fragments_ajax Disallow: /watch_popup Disallow: /watch_queue_ajax Disallow: /youtubei/
Excerpt: only groups for all user-agents (*) or named AI crawlers, up to 40 rules per group.
Sites with a similar AI policy
Does youtube.com block GPTBot?
No. As of Oct 2, 2026, youtube.com's robots.txt doesn't block GPTBot, though some paths are restricted for all crawlers.
Can ChatGPT search show results from youtube.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 youtube.com have an llms.txt file?
We didn't find a valid llms.txt at youtube.com/llms.txt when we checked.
Data: youtube.com's public robots.txt and llms.txt, fetched by AskableHQ. Popularity rank from the Tranco list (ID Y83YG). Methodology.