Does whatsapp.net block AI crawlers?
whatsapp.net blocks 6 of 17 AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot, Applebot-Extended and Amazonbot), and allows 11 (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: robots.txt disallows it. |
| 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: robots.txt disallows it. |
| PerplexityBot Perplexity | Perplexity (retrieval) | Blocked | Blocked: robots.txt disallows it. |
| Perplexity-User Perplexity | Perplexity (retrieval) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| CCBot Common Crawl | Common Crawl (research) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| Bytespider ByteDance | ByteDance (training) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| Applebot-Extended Apple | Apple Intelligence (training) | Blocked | Blocked: robots.txt disallows it. |
| Meta-ExternalAgent Meta | Meta AI (training) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| Amazonbot Amazon | Alexa (training) | Blocked | Blocked: robots.txt disallows it. |
| cohere-ai Cohere | Cohere (retrieval) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| Diffbot Diffbot | Diffbot (research) | Allowed | Allowed: robots.txt permits it and the page loaded. |
| 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%).
- Google-Extended is blocked by 38 of the 244 sites on these pages (15.6%).
- PerplexityBot is blocked by 29 of the 242 sites on these pages (12%).
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.whatsapp.com/ |
|---|---|
| HTTPS | yes |
| Title | 65 characters |
| Meta description | 180 characters |
| Canonical | points to itself |
| Noindex | no |
| H1 elements | 1 |
| Language | en |
| JSON-LD types | none |
| hreflang alternates | 61 |
| /sitemap.xml | valid XML sitemap |
| Response time | 874 ms |
How this was measured
We read whatsapp.net’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
- amazon.com — blocks 15 of 17
- instagram.com — blocks 17 of 17
- fastly.net — blocks none of 17
- yahoo.com — blocks 9 of 17
- fbcdn.net — blocks 17 of 17
- skybridge.click — blocks 17 of 17