Does redd.it block AI crawlers?
redd.it blocks 3 of 17 AI crawlers (GPTBot, ChatGPT-User and Google-Extended), and allows 6 (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 at the server: robots.txt permits it, but the live fetch was refused. |
| OAI-SearchBot OpenAI | ChatGPT search (retrieval) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| ChatGPT-User OpenAI | ChatGPT (retrieval) | Blocked | Blocked at the server: robots.txt permits it, but the live fetch was refused. |
| ClaudeBot Anthropic | Claude (training) | Not established | Allowed by robots.txt; the live fetch was rate limited, so access was not confirmed. |
| 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) | Blocked | Blocked at the server: robots.txt permits it, but the live fetch was refused. |
| 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) | Not established | Allowed by robots.txt; the live fetch timed out, so access was not confirmed. |
| Bytespider ByteDance | ByteDance (training) | Not established | Allowed by robots.txt; the live fetch timed out, so access was not confirmed. |
| Applebot-Extended Apple | Apple Intelligence (training) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| Meta-ExternalAgent Meta | Meta AI (training) | Not established | Allowed by robots.txt; the live fetch timed out, so access was not confirmed. |
| Amazonbot Amazon | Alexa (training) | Not established | Allowed by robots.txt; the live fetch timed out, so access was not confirmed. |
| cohere-ai Cohere | Cohere (retrieval) | Not established | Allowed by robots.txt; the live fetch timed out, so access was not confirmed. |
| Diffbot Diffbot | Diffbot (research) | Not established | Allowed by robots.txt; the live fetch timed out, so access was not confirmed. |
| Timpibot Timpi | Timpi (research) | Not established | Allowed by robots.txt; the live fetch timed out, so access was not confirmed. |
How that compares
- GPTBot is blocked by 38 of the 239 sites on these pages (15.9%).
- ChatGPT-User is blocked by 30 of the 240 sites on these pages (12.5%).
- Google-Extended is blocked by 38 of the 244 sites on these pages (15.6%).
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.reddit.com/ |
|---|---|
| HTTPS | yes |
| Title | 6 characters |
| Meta description | missing |
| Canonical | none declared |
| Noindex | no |
| H1 elements | 0 |
| Language | en |
| JSON-LD types | none |
| hreflang alternates | 0 |
| /sitemap.xml | not measured |
| Response time | 35 ms |
How this was measured
We read redd.it’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
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Other sites
- clickagy.com — blocks none of 17
- google.com.br — blocks none of 17
- atlassian.com — blocks none of 17
- avast.com — blocks none of 17
- oracle.com — blocks none of 17
- vistarsagency.com — blocks none of 17