Does zdnet.com block AI crawlers?

Can AI assistants cite zdnet.com?

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

zdnet.com opts out of AI training by OpenAI, Anthropic, 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 zdnet.com compares

• 19% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block GPTBot; zdnet.com is one of them.
• 18% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block ClaudeBot; zdnet.com is one of them.
• 14% of the 1,278 popular sites we checked block PerplexityBot; zdnet.com is one of them.
• Among 150 sites of similar popularity, 25% block at least one AI crawler.

The robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers

User-agent: *
Disallow: /user/*
Disallow: /members/
Disallow: /members/newsletters/
Disallow: /members/alerts/add/
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: *Xhr*
Disallow: */xhr*
Disallow: */ajax/*
Disallow: */fly/*/bundles/flyjs/*
Disallow: */libs/*
Disallow: */version!libs/*
Disallow: /.well-known/*
Disallow: /index.php/*
Disallow: *?beta=*
Disallow: *?ftag=*

User-agent: AddSearchBot
User-agent: AI2Bot
User-agent: Ai2Bot-DeepResearchEval
User-agent: Ai2Bot-Dolma
User-agent: AIWebIndex
User-agent: amazon-QBusiness
User-agent: Amazonbot
User-agent: AmazonBuyForMe
User-agent: Amzn-SearchBot
User-agent: Amzn-User
User-agent: Anchor Browser
User-agent: anthropic-ai
User-agent: ApifyBot
User-agent: ApifyWebsiteContentCrawler
User-agent: Applebot
User-agent: Applebot-extended
User-agent: atlassian-bot
User-agent: AutoRAG
User-agent: AwarioSmartBot
User-agent: AzureAI-SearchBot
User-agent: Big Sur AI
User-agent: bigsur.ai
User-agent: Brandwatch
User-agent: Bravebot
User-agent: Brightbot
User-agent: Bytespider
User-agent: CCBot
User-agent: Channel3Bot
User-agent: ChatGLM-Spider
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
User-agent: Claude-Code
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
User-agent: Claude-User
User-agent: Claude-Web
User-agent: ClaudeBot
User-agent: Code
User-agent: cohere-ai
User-agent: cohere-training-data-crawler
User-agent: Cotoyogi
User-agent: Crawl4AI
User-agent: Cursor
User-agent: Datenbank Crawler
User-agent: Datenbank-Crawler
User-agent: DeepSeekBot
User-agent: Devin
User-agent: Diffbot
User-agent: Direqt Anomura
User-agent: DuckAssistBot
User-agent: Echobot Bot
User-agent: ExaBot
User-agent: FacebookBot
User-agent: Factset_spyderbot
User-agent: FirecrawlAgent
User-agent: GeistHaus-PageFetcher
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: iAsk
User-agent: iAskBot
User-agent: iaskspider
User-agent: ICC Crawler
User-agent: ICC-Crawler
User-agent: ImageSiftBot
User-agent: imageSpider
User-agent: kagi-fetcher
User-agent: Kangaroo Bot
User-agent: Kangaroo-Bot
User-agent: Kimi-User
User-agent: KlaviyoAIBot
User-agent: Kunato
User-agent: laion-huggingface-processor
User-agent: LCC
User-agent: LINER Bot
User-agent: LinerBot
User-agent: LinkupBot
User-agent: Manus-User
User-agent: meta-externalagent
User-agent: meta-externalfetcher
User-agent: meta-webindexer
User-agent: mistral.ai
User-agent: MistralAI-User
User-agent: netEstate Imprint Crawler
User-agent: NovaAct
User-agent: Novellum
User-agent: Novellum AI Crawl
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: omgili
User-agent: opencode
User-agent: PanguBot
User-agent: PeopleInc-DCipher-Scraper/1.1.0
User-agent: Perplexity-User
User-agent: PerplexityBot
User-agent: PetalBot
User-agent: PhindBot
User-agent: Poggio-Citations
User-agent: QualifiedBot
User-agent: SBIntuitionsBot
User-agent: SeekrBot
User-agent: SemrushBot-OCOB
User-agent: SemrushBotSwa
User-agent: Shap-User
User-agent: ShapBot
User-agent: Spider
User-agent: TavilyBot
User-agent: TerraCotta
User-agent: Timpibot
User-agent: TongyiBot
User-agent: Trae
User-agent: TwinAgent
User-agent: UseAI
User-agent: Velen Crawler
User-agent: VelenPublicWebCrawler
User-agent: Webzio-Extended
User-agent: Wrtn
User-agent: YiyanBot
User-agent: YouBot
User-agent: ZanistaBot
Allow: /article/how-ai-companies-are-secretly-collecting-training-data-from-the-web-and-why-it-matters/
Allow: /article/how-proxy-servers-actually-work-and-why-theyre-so-valuable/
Allow: /article/how-to-print-checks-in-quickbooks-online/
Allow: /article/how-to-remove-your-personal-information-from-whitepages-in-5-steps-and-why-you-should/
Allow: /article/how-to-undo-a-reconciliation-in-quickbooks-online-the-easy-way/
Allow: /article/i-found-the-easiest-way-to-delete-myself-from-the-internet-and-why-you-shouldnt-wait-to-use-it-too/
Allow: /article/incogni-vs-deleteme/
Allow: /article/this-proxy-provider-i-tested-is-the-best-for-web-scraping-and-its-not-iproyal-or-marsproxies/
Allow: /article/xero-vs-quickbooks/
Disallow: /

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

Sites with a similar AI policy

• rocketmoney.dev · 12 blocked
• hola.com · 4 blocked
• adrta.com · 12 blocked
• marketwatch.com · 9 blocked
• newyorker.com · 9 blocked
• newsweek.com · 7 blocked
• liquipedia.net · 4 blocked
• meb.gov.tr · 8 blocked

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