Does bidmachine.io block AI crawlers?
bidmachine.io blocks 6 of 17 AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot, Amazonbot, cohere-ai and Diffbot) and serves a bot challenge to 1, and allows 10 (checked 2026-10-01).
Retrieval crawlers are blocked too, so AI assistants that fetch a page live to quote and link it cannot read this site. Its content can still appear in answers from older training data or third-party copies, but not as a fresh, cited source.
Every crawler we tested
| Crawler | Used for | Verdict | What we saw |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPTBot OpenAI | ChatGPT (training) | Blocked | Blocked: robots.txt disallows it. |
| OAI-SearchBot OpenAI | ChatGPT search (retrieval) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| ChatGPT-User OpenAI | ChatGPT (retrieval) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| ClaudeBot Anthropic | Claude (training) | Blocked | Blocked at the server: robots.txt permits it, but the live fetch was refused. |
| Claude-SearchBot Anthropic | Claude search (retrieval) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| Claude-User Anthropic | Claude (retrieval) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| Google-Extended Google | Gemini (training) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| PerplexityBot Perplexity | Perplexity (retrieval) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| Perplexity-User Perplexity | Perplexity (retrieval) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| CCBot Common Crawl | Common Crawl (research) | Blocked | Blocked at the server: robots.txt permits it, but the live fetch was refused. |
| Bytespider ByteDance | ByteDance (training) | Challenged | Challenged: robots.txt permits it, but the fetch got a bot challenge page instead of the content. |
| Applebot-Extended Apple | Apple Intelligence (training) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| Meta-ExternalAgent Meta | Meta AI (training) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| Amazonbot Amazon | Alexa (training) | Blocked | Blocked at the server: robots.txt permits it, but the live fetch was refused. |
| cohere-ai Cohere | Cohere (retrieval) | Blocked | Blocked at the server: robots.txt permits it, but the live fetch was refused. |
| Diffbot Diffbot | Diffbot (research) | Blocked | Blocked at the server: robots.txt permits it, but the live fetch was refused. |
| Timpibot Timpi | Timpi (research) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
How that compares
- GPTBot is blocked by 38 of the 239 sites on these pages (15.9%).
- ClaudeBot is blocked by 36 of the 240 sites on these pages (15%).
- CCBot is blocked by 37 of the 240 sites on these pages (15.4%).
- Amazonbot is blocked by 31 of the 237 sites on these pages (13.1%).
Homepage SEO snapshot
From the Crawlwise SEO Index run, checked 2026-10-05. One fetch of the homepage, so it describes that page and not the whole site.
| Homepage | https://www.bidmachine.com/ |
|---|---|
| HTTPS | yes |
| Title | 46 characters |
| Meta description | 83 characters |
| Canonical | points to itself |
| Noindex | no |
| H1 elements | 4 |
| Language | en |
| JSON-LD types | Organization, ImageObject, PostalAddress, ContactPoint, WebSite, WebPage |
| hreflang alternates | 0 |
| /sitemap.xml | valid XML sitemap |
| Response time | 143 ms |
How this was measured
We read bidmachine.io’s robots.txt, resolved it with an RFC 9309 matcher for each crawler’s product token, then fetched the homepage once as each crawler. A 403 or a challenge page is a block even when robots.txt allows the crawler; a timeout or rate limit is “not established”, never a block. One probe, from one location, on 2026-10-01, so a rule changed since then is not reflected here. Full methodology.
Check your own site
The free checker runs the same probe on any URL: robots.txt resolved for every AI crawler, then a live fetch as each one, so a CDN or firewall block shows up even when robots.txt looks fine.
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Other sites
- posthog.com — blocks none of 17
- wp.pl — blocks 2 of 17
- nexx360.io — blocks none of 17
- dropbox.com — blocks none of 17
- admaster.cc — blocks none of 17
- sharethis.com — blocks none of 17