Block CCBot in robots.txt
CCBot is Common Crawl's crawler. Its open dataset is one of the most widely used sources of AI training data on the internet — so a single CCBot block keeps your content out of many downstream models at once.
What CCBot does
Common Crawl is a non-profit that publishes a free, open archive of the web. CCBot is the crawler that builds it. Because the dataset is public and enormous, countless AI labs and researchers train models on it — including many that never crawl your site directly. That makes CCBot unusually high-leverage: blocking it removes your content from a dataset that feeds dozens of downstream trainers.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| User-agent | CCBot |
| Operator | Common Crawl (non-profit) |
| Purpose | Build the open Common Crawl dataset |
| Downstream use | Training data for many third-party models |
| Honors robots.txt | Yes |
Why CCBot is worth a deliberate decision
One block, broad effect
The flip side: Common Crawl also powers legitimate research, search projects, and archives. Some site owners deliberately allow it to support the open web. Decide based on whether broad reuse of your content is acceptable.
Robots.txt AnalyzerAnalyze a siteHow to block CCBot
Block CCBot across your whole site:
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /Most sites that block CCBot also block the major commercial training crawlers in the same file:
User-agent: CCBot
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: ClaudeBot
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: *
Allow: /
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xmlAllow CCBot explicitly with an empty Disallow:
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow:Common mistakes
Blocking GPTBot but forgetting CCBot
Your content can still reach OpenAI-style models indirectly through Common Crawl. Block CCBot too for a fuller opt-out.
Assuming it's a search engine
CCBot doesn't power a search engine. Blocking it costs you no search traffic.
Only blocking new training
robots.txt prevents future crawls; it can't retract data already in past Common Crawl snapshots.
How do I block CCBot?
Add User-agent: CCBot followed by Disallow: / to robots.txt. CCBot honors robots.txt, so this removes your site from future Common Crawl snapshots.
Why does blocking CCBot matter so much?
Common Crawl's open dataset is used to train a large number of AI models. Blocking CCBot keeps your content out of that shared dataset, which affects many downstream trainers at once — not just one company.
Does blocking CCBot affect SEO?
No. CCBot is not a search engine crawler. Blocking it has no impact on your Google or Bing rankings.
Can I remove my content from past Common Crawl data?
robots.txt only prevents future crawling. It does not delete content already captured in earlier Common Crawl snapshots; for that you'd contact Common Crawl directly.
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