Publishers / techcrunch.com
Two different webs
7 of 14 AI agents get the full page at https://techcrunch.com/. Checked 2026-09-25 09:33 UTC.
techcrunch.com scores 67 out of 100 for machine visibility, number 24 of the 100 content publishers checked on 2026-09-25. 7 of 14 AI agents receive the full page: 2 of 8 training crawlers, 3 of 3 AI search indexes and 2 of 3 assistant fetchers. All 7 refusals are written in robots.txt, which is the transparent way to do it. The pattern is "cite me, don't train on me": 6 of 8 training crawlers are refused while 5 of 6 search and assistant fetchers get through. Bytespider received a bot-management challenge instead of the page. There is no llms.txt.
youfull pagedegradedblockedunknown
Human
- Status
- 200
- Title
- TechCrunch | Startup and Technology News
- H1
- none
- Words
- 2,002
- Scripts
- 42 tags · 27 KB
- Meta robots
- index, follow, max-image-preview:large, max-snippet:-1, max-video-preview:-1
- Canonical
- https://techcrunch.com/
- Server
- nginx
Machine
- robots.txt
- 13 groups · 2 sitemaps
- llms.txt
- missing
- llms-full.txt
- missing
- X-Robots-Tag
- none
- Blocked
- Google-Extended, GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Applebot-Extended, Bytespider, CCBot
- Degraded
- none
- Challenged
- Bytespider
Gaps
- medium7 of 14 AI agents are blockedGoogle-Extended: robots.txt Disallow: / (group: Google-Extended) · GPTBot: robots.txt Disallow: / (group: GPTBot) · ChatGPT-User: robots.txt Disallow: / (group: ChatGPT-User) · ClaudeBot: robots.txt Disallow: / (group: ClaudeBot) · Applebot-Extended: robots.txt Disallow: / (group: Applebot-Extended) · Bytespider: robots.txt Disallow: / (group: Bytespider) · CCBot: robots.txt Disallow: / (group: CCBot)
- infoTraining blocked, citation allowedTraining crawlers are refused while search and assistant fetches get through. This is the common "cite me, don't train on me" posture.
- mediumBot-management challenge served to crawlersBytespider received an interstitial instead of the page. A robots.txt rule is an honest block. A challenge hides the page without saying so.
- lowNo llms.txtOptional, but a short curated index at /llms.txt is the cheapest way to tell assistants what matters on this site.
Every agent
| Agent | Type | robots.txt | Fetch | Words | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Human (Chrome)You | Human | allowed | 200372 ms | 2,002 | visible HTTP 200, 2002 words |
| GooglebotGoogle · Classic search index. Also feeds AI Overviews. | Search engine | allowed | 200394 ms | 2,002 | visible HTTP 200, 2002 words |
| Google-ExtendedGoogle · Robots-only token controlling Gemini training use. Never fetches on its own. | AI training | disallowedDisallow: / | n/a | blocked robots.txt Disallow: / (group: Google-Extended) | |
| GPTBotOpenAI · Training crawler for OpenAI models. | AI training | disallowedDisallow: / | 200379 ms | 2,002 | blocked robots.txt Disallow: / (group: GPTBot) |
| OAI-SearchBotOpenAI · Indexes for ChatGPT search results and citations. | AI search index | allowed | 200371 ms | 2,002 | visible HTTP 200, 2002 words |
| ChatGPT-UserOpenAI · Live fetch when a user asks ChatGPT about a page. | AI assistant (live fetch) | disallowedDisallow: / | 200393 ms | 2,002 | blocked robots.txt Disallow: / (group: ChatGPT-User) |
| ClaudeBotAnthropic · Training crawler for Claude models. | AI training | disallowedDisallow: / | 200412 ms | 2,002 | blocked robots.txt Disallow: / (group: ClaudeBot) |
| Claude-SearchBotAnthropic · Indexes for Claude web search. | AI search index | allowed | 200393 ms | 2,002 | visible HTTP 200, 2002 words |
| Claude-UserAnthropic · Live fetch when a user asks Claude about a page. | AI assistant (live fetch) | allowed | 200425 ms | 2,002 | visible HTTP 200, 2002 words |
| PerplexityBotPerplexity | AI search index | allowed | 200412 ms | 2,002 | visible HTTP 200, 2002 words |
| Perplexity-UserPerplexity | AI assistant (live fetch) | allowed | 200397 ms | 2,002 | visible HTTP 200, 2002 words |
| BingbotMicrosoft · Bing index. Also feeds Copilot and ChatGPT search. | Search engine | allowed | 200438 ms | 2,002 | visible HTTP 200, 2002 words |
| Applebot-ExtendedApple · Robots-only token for Apple Intelligence training. | AI training | disallowedDisallow: / | n/a | blocked robots.txt Disallow: / (group: Applebot-Extended) | |
| Meta-ExternalAgentMeta | AI training | allowed | 200444 ms | 2,002 | visible HTTP 200, 2002 words |
| AmazonbotAmazon · Alexa and Amazon AI. | AI training | allowed | 200449 ms | 2,002 | visible HTTP 200, 2002 words |
| BytespiderByteDance · Known for ignoring robots.txt. | AI training | disallowedDisallow: / | 429 challenge189 ms | 9 | blocked robots.txt Disallow: / (group: Bytespider) |
| CCBotCommon Crawl · Open dataset used to train most LLMs. | AI training | disallowedDisallow: / | 200435 ms | 2,002 | blocked robots.txt Disallow: / (group: CCBot) |
Snapshot
Measured 2026-09-25 09:33 UTC from a residential connection. Sites change their rules often, and sites that verify crawler IPs answer differently to different networks. Run a live comparison to see what techcrunch.com does right now, from Cloudflare's network.