Report . November 2026
The state of AI crawler access, November 2026
Drawn from 6 daily crawls of up to 3,704 Tranco-ranked domains, of which 3,642 could be measured.
Month in progress. These figures move with every nightly crawl until November 2026 ends, at which point the report is written to a permanent file and stops changing. Quote it with the measurement date attached, or wait for the seal.
Research and data by Fidget Labs BV, Breda, Netherlands. Published as CrawlIndex and free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.
What moved
Between 2026-11-01 and 2026-11-07, the number of measured sites blocking at least one answer-surface AI crawler fell by 4 sites. Sites publishing an llms.txt rose by 12 sites, and sites publishing an agents.md rose by 3 sites.
The mean readiness score across scored sites fell 0.2 points to 64.04.
9 sites answered an agent with HTTP 402 Payment Required. That is a pay-per-crawl gateway rather than a block: access is being metered and sold rather than refused.
Sites that could not be measured are excluded rather than counted as failures, so these totals are over the 3,642 domains actually observed. Method: /methodology. Coverage and its limits: /coverage.
Across the month
Who set the policy
Blocking rate grouped by edge network. Sites behind fastly blocked at 24.8% against 2.5% behind google, which is a far wider spread than anything explained by what the sites themselves publish.
| Edge network | Sites | Blocking AI | Proportion blocking | Mean score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | 1,130 | 180 (15.9%) | 69.7 | |
| Amazon CloudFront | 421 | 82 (19.5%) | 64.8 | |
| Akamai | 278 | 42 (15.1%) | 67.4 | |
| Fastly | 214 | 53 (24.8%) | 63.9 | |
| Google Cloud / GFE | 163 | 4 (2.5%) | 58 | |
| Vercel | 58 | 2 (3.4%) | 75.5 | |
| Varnish | 33 | 8 (24.2%) | 62.9 | |
| Alibaba Cloud CDN | 32 | 2 (6.3%) | 64.8 | |
| Azure Front Door | 31 | 2 (6.5%) | 60.1 |
By publishing platform
| Platform | Sites | Blocking AI | Proportion blocking | Mean score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Next.js | 311 | 52 (16.7%) | 66.5 | |
| WordPress | 307 | 51 (16.6%) | 70.3 | |
| Adobe Experience Manager | 137 | 9 (6.6%) | 64.5 | |
| Drupal | 109 | 5 (4.6%) | 64.1 | |
| HubSpot CMS | 82 | 4 (4.9%) | 72.7 | |
| Contentful | 59 | 3 (5.1%) | 68 | |
| Nuxt | 51 | 1 (2.0%) | 65.5 | |
| Sanity | 31 | 3 (9.7%) | 76.5 |
Blocking by crawler
| Crawler | Operator | Blocked by | Share | Over period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CCBot | Common Crawl | 563 | 15.5% | -5 |
| Bytespider | ByteDance | 549 | 15.1% | no change |
| GPTBot | OpenAI | 531 | 14.6% | -5 |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | 509 | 14.0% | -5 |
| meta-externalagent | Meta | 484 | 13.3% | -2 |
| Diffbot | Diffbot | 461 | 12.7% | -3 |
| Google-Extended | 460 | 12.6% | -5 | |
| Applebot-Extended | Apple | 448 | 12.3% | -2 |
| cohere-ai | Cohere | 447 | 12.3% | -2 |
| Amazonbot | Amazon | 437 | 12.0% | -2 |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | 349 | 9.6% | -13 |
| YouBot | You.com | 329 | 9.0% | -3 |
| ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | 299 | 8.2% | -7 |
| Perplexity-User | Perplexity | 274 | 7.5% | no change |
| Claude-User | Anthropic | 272 | 7.5% | +2 |
| DuckAssistBot | DuckDuckGo | 270 | 7.4% | +2 |
| MistralAI-User | Mistral | 261 | 7.2% | +1 |
| Claude-SearchBot | Anthropic | 260 | 7.1% | +3 |
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | 249 | 6.8% | -5 |
| FirecrawlAgent | Firecrawl | 218 | 6.0% | +2 |
| TavilyBot | Tavily | 196 | 5.4% | +2 |
| Google-NotebookLM | 194 | 5.3% | +4 | |
| kagi-fetcher | Kagi | 162 | 4.4% | +1 |
Policy changes this month
- trip.comtrip.com: llms.txt removed.
- tappx.comtappx.com now allows GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- rte.ierte.ie now blocks ClaudeBot, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- prudential.comprudential.com now blocks GPTBot, Google-Extended.
- popularmechanics.compopularmechanics.com now allows PerplexityBot.
- pimpbunny.compimpbunny.com now allows GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- newsbreak.comnewsbreak.com now allows GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- meraki.commeraki.com now allows GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- menshealth.commenshealth.com now allows PerplexityBot.
- meb.gov.trmeb.gov.tr now blocks GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended.
- hugedomains.comhugedomains.com: llms.txt added.
- home.plhome.pl: llms.txt removed.
- home.bloghome.blog now allows GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- hola.comhola.com now allows PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Applebot-Extended.
- hln.behln.be now allows GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- hindustantimes.comhindustantimes.com: llms.txt removed.
- hindustantimes.comhindustantimes.com now allows meta-externalagent.
- hihonor.comhihonor.com: llms.txt removed.
- harpersbazaar.comharpersbazaar.com now allows PerplexityBot.
- gosuslugi.rugosuslugi.ru now allows GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- goodhousekeeping.comgoodhousekeeping.com now allows PerplexityBot.
- fortune.comfortune.com now allows Google-Extended.
- farfetch.comfarfetch.com: llms.txt added.
- esquire.comesquire.com now allows PerplexityBot.
- elmundo.eselmundo.es now allows GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- elle.comelle.com now allows PerplexityBot.
- eenadu.neteenadu.net now blocks GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- cosmopolitan.comcosmopolitan.com now allows PerplexityBot.
- bloomberg.combloomberg.com: llms.txt added.
- arlo.comarlo.com: llms.txt added.
- amocrm.ruamocrm.ru: llms.txt removed.
- amazonvideo.comamazonvideo.com now blocks ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, meta-externalagent.
- wpengine.comwpengine.com: llms.txt added, agents.md added.
- trip.comtrip.com: llms.txt added.
- stbid.rustbid.ru now blocks GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- prudential.comprudential.com now allows GPTBot, Google-Extended.
- oneidrive.orgoneidrive.org now blocks GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- mindbox.rumindbox.ru: llms.txt removed.
- meraki.commeraki.com now blocks GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, meta-externalagent.
- meb.gov.trmeb.gov.tr now allows GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended.
Where the index stood
The top and bottom of the leaderboard as it stands right now.
Most agent-ready
- Score 97 out of 100, grade Awpengine.com
- Score 95 out of 100, grade Aappsflyer.com
- Score 95 out of 100, grade Acrawlindex.org
- Score 93 out of 100, grade Atherapservices.net
- Score 93 out of 100, grade Ayotpo.com
- Score 92 out of 100, grade Arailway.app
- Score 91 out of 100, grade Aatlassian.com
- Score 91 out of 100, grade Ausercentrics.eu
- Score 91 out of 100, grade Ahaberler.com
- Score 91 out of 100, grade Aprotothema.gr
Least agent-ready
- Score 15 out of 100, grade Famazon.com
- Score 15 out of 100, grade Ftiktok.com
- Score 15 out of 100, grade Famazon.ca
- Score 15 out of 100, grade Famazon.com.br
- Score 15 out of 100, grade Famazon.com.mx
- Score 20 out of 100, grade Flaunchpad.net
- Score 21 out of 100, grade Fgentoo.org
- Score 24 out of 100, grade Fcnbc.com
- Score 24 out of 100, grade Fusatoday.com
- Score 24 out of 100, grade Fdw.com
Citing this report
Free to quote and republish under CC BY 4.0. Credit Fidget Labs BV and include the measurement date so the claim stays checkable as the index moves.
CrawlIndex by Fidget Labs BV. "The state of AI crawler access, November 2026." https://crawlindex.org (measured 2026-11-07). Licensed CC BY 4.0.