Publishers / webmd.com
Two different webs
9 of 14 AI agents get the full page at https://webmd.com/. Checked 2026-09-25 09:33 UTC.
webmd.com scores 64 out of 100 for machine visibility, number 28 of the 100 content publishers checked on 2026-09-25. 9 of 14 AI agents receive the full page: 4 of 8 training crawlers, 3 of 3 AI search indexes and 2 of 3 assistant fetchers. 3 are refused in robots.txt and 2 are refused at the HTTP level. The pattern is "cite me, don't train on me": 4 of 8 training crawlers are refused while 5 of 6 search and assistant fetchers get through. Googlebot, ChatGPT-User received a bot-management challenge instead of the page. Googlebot itself is blocked: Bot challenge served (HTTP 403). There is no llms.txt.
youfull pagedegradedblockedunknown
Human
- Status
- 200 → https://www.webmd.com/
- Title
- WebMD - Better information. Better health.
- H1
- none
- Words
- 926
- Scripts
- 23 tags · 100 KB
- Meta robots
- none
- Canonical
- https://www.webmd.com/
- Server
- cloudflare
Machine
- robots.txt
- 6 groups · 0 sitemaps
- llms.txt
- missing
- llms-full.txt
- missing
- X-Robots-Tag
- none
- Blocked
- GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Bytespider, CCBot
- Degraded
- none
- Challenged
- Googlebot, ChatGPT-User
Gaps
- medium5 of 14 AI agents are blockedGPTBot: robots.txt Disallow: / (group: GPTBot) · ChatGPT-User: Bot challenge served (HTTP 403) · ClaudeBot: robots.txt Disallow: / (group: ClaudeBot) · Bytespider: HTTP 403 for this user agent · 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 crawlersGooglebot, ChatGPT-User 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.
- highGooglebot is blockedBot challenge served (HTTP 403)
- infoGoogle-Extended not listedYou block other training crawlers but Gemini training via Google-Extended is still allowed. Add it to the same group if the policy is meant to be even-handed.
- infoCanonical points elsewhereCanonical is https://www.webmd.com/. Indexes will credit that URL, not this one.
Every agent
| Agent | Type | robots.txt | Fetch | Words | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Human (Chrome)You | Human | allowed | 2001487 ms | 926 | visible HTTP 200, 926 words |
| GooglebotGoogle · Classic search index. Also feeds AI Overviews. | Search engine | allowed | 403 challenge1111 ms | 127 | blocked Bot challenge served (HTTP 403) |
| Google-ExtendedGoogle · Robots-only token controlling Gemini training use. Never fetches on its own. | AI training | allowed | n/a | visible Robots-only token; allowed by robots.txt | |
| GPTBotOpenAI · Training crawler for OpenAI models. | AI training | disallowedDisallow: / | 2001430 ms | 926 | blocked robots.txt Disallow: / (group: GPTBot) |
| OAI-SearchBotOpenAI · Indexes for ChatGPT search results and citations. | AI search index | allowed | 2001459 ms | 926 | visible HTTP 200, 926 words |
| ChatGPT-UserOpenAI · Live fetch when a user asks ChatGPT about a page. | AI assistant (live fetch) | allowed | 403 challenge1110 ms | 127 | blocked Bot challenge served (HTTP 403) |
| ClaudeBotAnthropic · Training crawler for Claude models. | AI training | disallowedDisallow: / | 2001511 ms | 926 | blocked robots.txt Disallow: / (group: ClaudeBot) |
| Claude-SearchBotAnthropic · Indexes for Claude web search. | AI search index | allowed | 2001585 ms | 926 | visible HTTP 200, 926 words |
| Claude-UserAnthropic · Live fetch when a user asks Claude about a page. | AI assistant (live fetch) | allowed | 2001475 ms | 926 | visible HTTP 200, 926 words |
| PerplexityBotPerplexity | AI search index | allowed | 2001486 ms | 926 | visible HTTP 200, 926 words |
| Perplexity-UserPerplexity | AI assistant (live fetch) | allowed | 2001620 ms | 926 | visible HTTP 200, 926 words |
| BingbotMicrosoft · Bing index. Also feeds Copilot and ChatGPT search. | Search engine | allowed | 2001394 ms | 926 | visible HTTP 200, 926 words |
| Applebot-ExtendedApple · Robots-only token for Apple Intelligence training. | AI training | allowed | n/a | visible Robots-only token; allowed by robots.txt | |
| Meta-ExternalAgentMeta | AI training | allowed | 2001400 ms | 926 | visible HTTP 200, 926 words |
| AmazonbotAmazon · Alexa and Amazon AI. | AI training | allowed | 2001433 ms | 926 | visible HTTP 200, 926 words |
| BytespiderByteDance · Known for ignoring robots.txt. | AI training | allowed | 4031058 ms | 2 | blocked HTTP 403 for this user agent |
| CCBotCommon Crawl · Open dataset used to train most LLMs. | AI training | disallowedDisallow: / | 2001385 ms | 926 | 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 webmd.com does right now, from Cloudflare's network.