AI crawler policy › domain suffix

AI crawler blocking on .za sites

Latest sealed date 2026-08-07.

The panel contains 259 .za domains. On 2026-08-07, 177 of them served a robots.txt we could parse; 51 could not be reached at all and have no observed policy. Of the parsed ones, 43 (24.3%) name at least one tracked AI crawler and 37 (20.9%) block at least one site-wide. 4 block every crawler via the wildcard group, counted separately.

In the latest sealed reading for .za on 2026-08-07, 30 tracked crawler tokens were named by at least one observed file: GPTBot: 38 named, 31 blocked site-wide; Google-Extended: 35 named, 27 blocked site-wide; ClaudeBot: 34 named, 28 blocked site-wide; CCBot: 32 named, 27 blocked site-wide; Bytespider: 31 named, 30 blocked site-wide; Amazonbot: 30 named, 27 blocked site-wide; Applebot-Extended: 28 named, 23 blocked site-wide; meta-externalagent: 27 named, 24 blocked site-wide; PerplexityBot: 17 named, 8 blocked site-wide; ChatGPT-User: 15 named, 9 blocked site-wide; anthropic-ai: 12 named, 8 blocked site-wide; Claude-Web: 11 named, 8 blocked site-wide; cohere-ai: 8 named, 6 blocked site-wide; Diffbot: 8 named, 8 blocked site-wide; FacebookBot: 8 named, 6 blocked site-wide; omgili: 8 named, 8 blocked site-wide; ImagesiftBot: 7 named, 7 blocked site-wide; OAI-SearchBot: 7 named, 1 blocked site-wide; omgilibot: 6 named, 5 blocked site-wide; Claude-SearchBot: 3 named, 1 blocked site-wide; Claude-User: 3 named, 1 blocked site-wide; DuckAssistBot: 3 named, 3 blocked site-wide; Google-CloudVertexBot: 3 named, 3 blocked site-wide; meta-externalfetcher: 3 named, 2 blocked site-wide; Perplexity-User: 3 named, 1 blocked site-wide; AI2Bot: 2 named, 2 blocked site-wide; PanguBot: 2 named, 2 blocked site-wide; Timpibot: 2 named, 2 blocked site-wide; cohere-training-data-crawler: 1 named, 1 blocked site-wide; MistralAI-User: 1 named, 1 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 .za

CrawlerOperatorNames itBlocks outright% of parsed
GPTBotOpenAI383117.5%
Google-ExtendedGoogle352715.3%
ClaudeBotAnthropic342815.8%
CCBotCommon Crawl322715.3%
BytespiderByteDance313016.9%
AmazonbotAmazon302715.3%
Applebot-ExtendedApple282313.0%
meta-externalagentMeta272413.6%
PerplexityBotPerplexity1784.5%
ChatGPT-UserOpenAI1595.1%
anthropic-aiAnthropic1284.5%
Claude-WebAnthropic1184.5%
cohere-aiCohere863.4%
DiffbotDiffbot884.5%
FacebookBotMeta863.4%
omgiliWebz.io884.5%
ImagesiftBotImageSift774.0%
OAI-SearchBotOpenAI710.6%
omgilibotWebz.io652.8%
Claude-SearchBotAnthropic310.6%
Claude-UserAnthropic310.6%
DuckAssistBotDuckDuckGo331.7%
Google-CloudVertexBotGoogle331.7%
meta-externalfetcherMeta321.1%
Perplexity-UserPerplexity310.6%
AI2BotAi2221.1%
PanguBotHuawei221.1%
TimpibotTimpi221.1%
cohere-training-data-crawlerCohere110.6%
MistralAI-UserMistral110.6%

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 .za

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 .za, the newest recorded 177 domains publishing a parseable robots.txt, against an observed low of 173 on 2026-07-25 and a high of 179 on 2026-07-28. In the newest reading, 43 named at least one tracked AI crawler (range 43 on 2026-07-27 to 45 on 2026-07-28), while 37 blocked at least one (range 37 on 2026-07-27 to 38 on 2026-08-01). 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
2026-08-0725917743374
2026-08-0625917743374
2026-08-0525917643374
2026-08-0425917443374
2026-08-0325917543374
2026-08-0225917744374
2026-08-0125917744384
2026-07-3125917744384
2026-07-3025917743374
2026-07-2925917743374
2026-07-2825917945384
2026-07-2725917443374
2026-07-2625917745384
2026-07-2525917345384
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 .za

Across the sealed archive, 63 crawler-verdict transitions were attributed to .za domains on 11 sealed change dates. The newest aggregate movements are listed below; no domain name or fetched file body is published.

Sealed dateCrawlerVerdict movedDomains
2026-07-24Applebot-Extendedblocked outright → named and allowed1
2026-07-24CCBotblocked outright → named and allowed1
2026-07-24Google-Extendedblocked outright → named and allowed1
2026-07-23Amazonbotnot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23Amazonbotnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-23Applebot-Extendednot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23Applebot-Extendednot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-23Bytespidernot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23Bytespidernot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-23CCBotnot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23CCBotnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-23ChatGPT-Usernot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23Claude-SearchBotnot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23Claude-Usernot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23ClaudeBotnot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23ClaudeBotnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-23Google-Extendednot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-23GPTBotnot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23GPTBotnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-23meta-externalagentnot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23meta-externalagentnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-23OAI-SearchBotnot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23Perplexity-Usernot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-23PerplexityBotnot mentioned → partly restricted1
2026-07-07Bytespidernot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-05anthropic-aiblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-05ChatGPT-Userblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-05Claude-Webblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-05FacebookBotblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-05omgiliblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-05omgilibotblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-05PerplexityBotblocked outright → not mentioned1
2026-07-03anthropic-ainot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-03ChatGPT-Usernot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-03Claude-Webnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-03FacebookBotnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-03omgilinot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-03omgilibotnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-03PerplexityBotnot mentioned → blocked outright1
2026-07-02OAI-SearchBotnamed and allowed → 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.

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