Does washingtonpost.com block AI crawlers?
washingtonpost.com blocked PerplexityBot in robots.txt; turned Claude-SearchBot away at the firewall even though robots.txt allowed it; couldn't be firewall-tested for OAI-SearchBot because it refused an ordinary browser request too. Its robots.txt blocked 4 of 7 AI training crawlers. We tested it on 13 October 2026 as part of our study of the top 5,000 websites, where washingtonpost.com ranked #368.
Can AI search engines cite it?
ChatGPT search · OAI-SearchBot
Firewall test inconclusive
The firewall test was inconclusive.
Claude · Claude-SearchBot
Blocked by the firewall
Robots.txt allows it, but the server answered our request as this crawler with a bot challenge page while a browser got the page.
Perplexity · PerplexityBot
Blocked in robots.txt
Robots.txt names it and disallows the site.
Firewall results come from requests that identified as each crawler from our own connection, not from the crawlers' IP addresses, so the real crawler may be treated differently.
This is a snapshot from 13 October 2026.
Run a live audit to see what AI crawlers get from washingtonpost.com today, plus 50 more checks.
At a glance
- AI training crawlers blocked
- 4 of 7 (ClaudeBot, Applebot-Extended, Bytespider, CCBot)
- robots.txt
- Published, with rules
- CDN
- Akamai
- Content-Signal
- None
- Home page to a browser
- HTTP 200
All 31 crawlers in washingtonpost.com's robots.txt
| Crawler | Job | washingtonpost.com | Sites blocking it |
|---|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | AI search index | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 7.5% |
| Claude-SearchBot | AI search index | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 7.1% |
| PerplexityBot | AI search index | Blocked (named rule) | 10% |
| MistralAI-Index | AI search index | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 4.1% |
| YouBot | AI search index | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 10% |
| ChatGPT-User | Fetches when a user asks | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 9.5% |
| Claude-User | Fetches when a user asks | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 7.5% |
| Perplexity-User | Fetches when a user asks | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 7.6% |
| Google-GeminiNotebook | Fetches when a user asks | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 3.9% |
| Meta-ExternalFetcher | Fetches when a user asks | Blocked (named rule) | 7.9% |
| Amzn-User | Fetches when a user asks | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 4.8% |
| DuckAssistBot | Fetches when a user asks | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 7.9% |
| MistralAI-User | Fetches when a user asks | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 7.1% |
| Googlebot | Search engine | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 2.1% |
| Bingbot | Search engine | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 2.3% |
| Meta-WebIndexer | Search engine | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 6.3% |
| Amzn-SearchBot | Search engine | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 5.1% |
| Applebot | Search and training under one name | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 3.5% |
| Meta-ExternalAgent | Search and training under one name | Blocked (named rule) | 12% |
| Amazonbot | Search and training under one name | Blocked (named rule) | 9.8% |
| GPTBot | Model training | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 14% |
| ClaudeBot | Model training | Blocked (named rule) | 13% |
| Google-Extended | Model training | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 12% |
| Applebot-Extended | Model training | Blocked (named rule) | 11% |
| MistralAI-Training | Model training | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 4.2% |
| Bytespider | Model training | Blocked (named rule) | 15% |
| CCBot | Model training | Blocked (named rule) | 15% |
| Google-Agent | Browses and acts for a user | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 4.2% |
| OAI-AdsBot | Ads checks and site-owner services | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 4.0% |
| Google-CloudVertexBot | Ads checks and site-owner services | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 6.9% |
| Meta-ExternalAds | Ads checks and site-owner services | Allowed (rule for all crawlers) | 3.9% |
“Sites blocking it” is the share of the 2,332 live sites with readable robots.txt rules in the same study. Matching follows RFC 9309: a crawler obeys the group that names it, otherwise the rule for all crawlers.
Run washingtonpost.com?
Blocking training crawlers doesn't remove you from AI answers; blocking the search crawlers does. To keep AI search and opt out of training, use the AI robots.txt generator, then check your CDN with a live audit. Every crawler's user agent is in the AI crawler list, and the full method and data are in the study.
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