AI crawler policy › domain suffix

AI crawler blocking on .uk sites

Latest sealed date 2026-08-07.

The panel contains 1,311 .uk domains. On 2026-08-07, 889 of them served a robots.txt we could parse; 259 could not be reached at all and have no observed policy. Of the parsed ones, 269 (30.3%) name at least one tracked AI crawler and 213 (24.0%) block at least one site-wide. 13 block every crawler via the wildcard group, counted separately.

In the latest sealed reading for .uk on 2026-08-07, 30 tracked crawler tokens were named by at least one observed file: GPTBot: 203 named, 165 blocked site-wide; ClaudeBot: 186 named, 153 blocked site-wide; CCBot: 168 named, 149 blocked site-wide; meta-externalagent: 155 named, 138 blocked site-wide; Applebot-Extended: 151 named, 139 blocked site-wide; Bytespider: 143 named, 131 blocked site-wide; Amazonbot: 125 named, 107 blocked site-wide; Google-Extended: 124 named, 97 blocked site-wide; PerplexityBot: 124 named, 91 blocked site-wide; anthropic-ai: 113 named, 95 blocked site-wide; OAI-SearchBot: 111 named, 82 blocked site-wide; Claude-Web: 101 named, 88 blocked site-wide; ChatGPT-User: 86 named, 50 blocked site-wide; Diffbot: 62 named, 56 blocked site-wide; omgili: 62 named, 53 blocked site-wide; cohere-ai: 61 named, 51 blocked site-wide; Timpibot: 53 named, 46 blocked site-wide; Claude-User: 52 named, 41 blocked site-wide; Claude-SearchBot: 51 named, 41 blocked site-wide; omgilibot: 51 named, 42 blocked site-wide; ImagesiftBot: 50 named, 43 blocked site-wide; AI2Bot: 48 named, 43 blocked site-wide; DuckAssistBot: 48 named, 42 blocked site-wide; meta-externalfetcher: 47 named, 39 blocked site-wide; PanguBot: 41 named, 41 blocked site-wide; FacebookBot: 38 named, 22 blocked site-wide; Perplexity-User: 37 named, 30 blocked site-wide; cohere-training-data-crawler: 35 named, 34 blocked site-wide; MistralAI-User: 34 named, 34 blocked site-wide; Google-CloudVertexBot: 25 named, 23 blocked site-wide. Each entry keeps the named count before the fully-blocked count. A tracked token absent from the list had zero observed mentions; the counts describe file declarations, not crawler behavior.

What "suffix" means here. The final DNS label, not the effective top-level domain. A .co.uk site is counted under .uk. Computing a true effective TLD needs the Public Suffix List, which this surface does not ship, and approximating one would put a wrong denominator under every figure on this page.

Every tracked crawler on .uk

CrawlerOperatorNames itBlocks outright% of parsed
GPTBotOpenAI20316518.6%
ClaudeBotAnthropic18615317.2%
CCBotCommon Crawl16814916.8%
meta-externalagentMeta15513815.5%
Applebot-ExtendedApple15113915.6%
BytespiderByteDance14313114.7%
AmazonbotAmazon12510712.0%
Google-ExtendedGoogle1249710.9%
PerplexityBotPerplexity1249110.2%
anthropic-aiAnthropic1139510.7%
OAI-SearchBotOpenAI111829.2%
Claude-WebAnthropic101889.9%
ChatGPT-UserOpenAI86505.6%
DiffbotDiffbot62566.3%
omgiliWebz.io62536.0%
cohere-aiCohere61515.7%
TimpibotTimpi53465.2%
Claude-UserAnthropic52414.6%
Claude-SearchBotAnthropic51414.6%
omgilibotWebz.io51424.7%
ImagesiftBotImageSift50434.8%
AI2BotAi248434.8%
DuckAssistBotDuckDuckGo48424.7%
meta-externalfetcherMeta47394.4%
PanguBotHuawei41414.6%
FacebookBotMeta38222.5%
Perplexity-UserPerplexity37303.4%
cohere-training-data-crawlerCohere35343.8%
MistralAI-UserMistral34343.8%
Google-CloudVertexBotGoogle25232.6%

Blocks outright — the file has a group for that exact product token containing Disallow: / with no overriding allow. Partly restricts — a group exists with at least one non-empty Disallow, but not the whole site. Names & allows — a group exists with no effective Disallow. Everything else is not mentioned: the wildcard * group governs it, and wildcard effects are counted separately rather than folded in, because a site that blocks everything has not made a decision about any AI crawler in particular. Matching is exact and case-insensitive per RFC 9309 — never substring.

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14 newest sealed readings for .uk

For each date, the table keeps the panel count beside the parseable robots.txt denominator, the sites naming or blocking a tracked AI crawler, and wildcard blocks. Unreachable or unusable responses are excluded rather than treated as permissive. These are aggregate observations of published files, not crawler behavior or the intent behind a declaration.

Across the 14 sealed readings shown for .uk, the newest recorded 889 domains publishing a parseable robots.txt, against an observed low of 886 on 2026-07-29 and a high of 894 on 2026-07-25. In the newest reading, 269 named at least one tracked AI crawler (range 267 on 2026-07-26 to 271 on 2026-08-03), while 213 blocked at least one (range 212 on 2026-08-06 to 216 on 2026-07-26). These are aggregate observations of published files. A movement can reflect changed fetch coverage as well as a changed file; it does not describe motive or crawler behavior.

Sealed datePanel domainsParsedNames anyBlocks anyWildcard block
2026-08-071,31188926921313
2026-08-061,31188726821213
2026-08-051,31189027021515
2026-08-041,31189127021515
2026-08-031,31189027121513
2026-08-021,31188927121513
2026-08-011,31188926921412
2026-07-311,31188927021413
2026-07-301,31189026921313
2026-07-291,31188626921313
2026-07-281,31188726721313
2026-07-271,31188926821513
2026-07-261,31189026721613
2026-07-251,31189426821613
Read this before quoting a trend. We hold 55 sealed daily snapshots between 2026-06-09 and 2026-08-07, out of 60 calendar days. 5 calendar day(s) inside that span have no collection run at all: 2026-06-11, 2026-06-12, 2026-06-19, 2026-07-04, 2026-07-15. Consecutive rows in every table below are consecutive SEALED dates, not consecutive days — where a gap falls, that row's diff covers more than 24 hours, and the span is printed with it. We do not interpolate across a day we did not collect.

Observed AI-crawler verdict changes on .uk

Across the sealed archive, 287 crawler-verdict transitions were attributed to .uk domains on 37 sealed change dates. The newest aggregate movements are listed below; no domain name or fetched file body is published.

Sealed dateCrawlerVerdict movedDomains
2026-08-06anthropic-ainot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06Applebot-Extendednot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06Bytespidernot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-08-06CCBotnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06ChatGPT-Usernot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06Claude-Webnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06ClaudeBotnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06cohere-ainot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06Google-Extendednot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06Google-Extendedblocked outright → named and allowed1
2026-08-06GPTBotnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06OAI-SearchBotnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06omgilinot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06omgilibotnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-06PerplexityBotnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-08-05CCBotblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-08-05meta-externalagentnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-08-04Amazonbotpartly restricted → not mentioned1
2026-08-04Applebot-Extendedpartly restricted → not mentioned1
2026-08-04Bytespiderpartly restricted → not mentioned1
2026-08-04CCBotpartly restricted → not mentioned1
2026-08-04ChatGPT-Userpartly restricted → not mentioned1
2026-08-04ClaudeBotpartly restricted → not mentioned1
2026-08-04Google-Extendedpartly restricted → not mentioned1
2026-08-04GPTBotpartly restricted → not mentioned1
2026-08-04PerplexityBotpartly restricted → not mentioned1
2026-08-03ImagesiftBotnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-29ClaudeBotnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-07-29GPTBotnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-07-29OAI-SearchBotnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-29PerplexityBotnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-07-28Amazonbotblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-28Applebot-Extendedblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-28Bytespiderblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-28CCBotblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-28ClaudeBotnot mentioned → named and allowed1
2026-07-28ClaudeBotblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-28Google-Extendedblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-28GPTBotblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-28meta-externalagentnot mentioned → partly restricted1

Compiled from each site's own published /robots.txt, /ai.txt, /llms.txt and /.well-known/tdmrep.json, fetched daily over a frozen 100,000-domain research panel (source list: Tranco; no Tranco rank is republished here). Verdicts are mechanical readings of what those files say under RFC 9309 grouping with exact product-token matching — they are not legal advice, not a statement about any site's intentions, and not a claim about what any crawler actually did. A robots.txt is a request, not an access control. Figures are provided for informational purposes only and carry no warranty of accuracy or completeness.

AI crawler policy home · What changed · How this is collected · US Tech Automations.