Agent Grade / AI bots by site / scientificamerican.com
Does scientificamerican.com block ChatGPT?
scientificamerican.com is open to Google but blocks ChatGPT search, Claude search, Perplexity. ChatGPT search is blocked, and OpenAI's training bot is blocked. From its public robots.txt, checked 23 to 24 October 2026. It ranks #1,885 on the Tranco list of top sites.
| Bot | What it does | Home page | Deciding rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Googlebot | Google Search | Allowed | no rule blocks it |
| Bingbot | Bing / Copilot | Allowed | no rule blocks it |
| OAI-SearchBot | ChatGPT search | Blocked | User-agent: OAI-SearchBot / Disallow: / |
| ChatGPT-User | ChatGPT (user asks) | Blocked | User-agent: ChatGPT-User / Disallow: / |
| GPTBot | OpenAI training | Blocked | User-agent: GPTBot / Disallow: / |
| Claude-SearchBot | Claude search | Blocked | User-agent: Claude-SearchBot / Disallow: / |
| Claude-User | Claude (user asks) | Blocked | User-agent: Claude-User / Disallow: / |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic training | Blocked | User-agent: ClaudeBot / Disallow: / |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity search | Blocked | User-agent: PerplexityBot / Disallow: / |
| Perplexity-User | Perplexity (user asks) | Allowed | no rule blocks it |
| Google-Extended | Gemini training | Blocked | User-agent: Google-Extended / Disallow: / |
| Applebot-Extended | Apple AI training | Allowed | no rule blocks it |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | Blocked | User-agent: CCBot / Disallow: / |
| meta-externalagent | Meta AI | Allowed | no rule blocks it |
| Bytespider | ByteDance | Allowed | no rule blocks it |
"Blanket rule": scientificamerican.com never names that bot; a rule for every bot (User-agent: *) applies. llms.txt: No. robots.txt is what a site asks bots to do; some sites also block bots at the network edge.
Questions
Does scientificamerican.com block ChatGPT search?
Yes. scientificamerican.com's robots.txt keeps OAI-SearchBot, the crawler behind ChatGPT search, off its home page (User-agent: OAI-SearchBot / Disallow: /), as checked 23 to 24 October 2026.
Does scientificamerican.com block GPTBot?
Yes. scientificamerican.com blocks GPTBot, OpenAI's training crawler (User-agent: GPTBot / Disallow: /).
Does scientificamerican.com block Claude?
ClaudeBot (Anthropic training): blocked. Claude-SearchBot (Claude search): blocked. Claude-User (fetches for a person): blocked.
Does scientificamerican.com have an llms.txt file?
We did not find an llms.txt file on scientificamerican.com, or its robots.txt did not allow us to fetch it.
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