CCBot robots.txt Rules for Common Crawl Data

CCBot is Common Crawl’s web crawler for building an open repository of web data. It checks robots.txt before fetching pages, supports Crawl-delay, and can be blocked with a dedicated CCBot group.

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Public web documents moving toward an open data archive through a publisher-controlled CCBot access gate

Primary reference

Official crawler documentation

Use the provider's current documentation to confirm the crawler token and purpose before changing a production robots.txt file.

Open Common Crawl documentation Reference checked July 6, 2026

Copy-paste robots.txt example

User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /

What CCBot does

CCBot is the crawler operated by Common Crawl, a nonprofit organization that maintains an open repository of web crawl data. The resulting datasets are broadly accessible for research and analysis, which makes this policy decision different from ordinary search indexing: allowing CCBot can place public material into an open corpus used by many independent organizations and researchers.

Common Crawl identifies the current crawler with a user-agent string beginning with CCBot/2.0. It checks robots.txt before fetching a page and uses HTTP GET requests. Common Crawl also states that CCBot currently does not execute JavaScript or use cookies.

Block or slow CCBot

To stop future crawling of the whole host, use the dedicated rule shown below. Common Crawl says CCBot will periodically continue checking robots.txt so it can detect later policy changes. Blocking CCBot does not by itself block Googlebot, Bingbot, or conventional search visibility because those crawlers use different user-agent groups.

If the goal is to reduce load rather than stop collection, CCBot supports the non-standard Crawl-delay directive. Common Crawl’s example uses a value of two seconds. Its crawler also backs off when a server returns HTTP 429 or 5xx responses.

Open-data and AI implications

Common Crawl data is available for bulk access and is used across research, analytics, and machine-learning projects. A robots.txt block expresses a future crawl-access policy; it should not be confused with authentication or a guarantee about copies that may already exist elsewhere. Keep genuinely private material behind server-side access controls.

Verify that traffic is genuine

Common Crawl warns that some crawlers falsely identify themselves as CCBot. It publishes dedicated IP ranges and reverse-DNS information so site operators can verify suspicious requests. A matching user-agent string alone is not proof that the request came from Common Crawl.

Sitemaps, subdomains, and testing

CCBot supports the Sitemap Protocol and can use a Sitemap directive announced in robots.txt. Rules apply per host, so subdomains require their own files. After publishing, open the live file at /robots.txt and run it through the checker. Test the exact production hostname rather than a staging copy. For a broader opt-out policy, compare the block all AI crawlers template with a selective configuration generated by the generator.

Operational checklist

  1. Use the exact CCBot token.
  2. Choose between complete blocking and a slower crawl rate.
  3. Verify suspicious traffic with published network data.
  4. Protect private content at the server.
  5. Maintain separate rules for every relevant subdomain.

FAQ

What is CCBot used for?

Common Crawl uses CCBot to collect public web pages for an open repository that supports research, analysis, and other downstream uses.

Does CCBot obey robots.txt?

Yes. Common Crawl says CCBot checks robots.txt before fetching a page and can be blocked with the CCBot user-agent token.

Can I slow CCBot instead of blocking it?

Yes. Common Crawl documents support for Crawl-delay, although it is a non-standard robots.txt directive.

Does CCBot execute JavaScript or use cookies?

Common Crawl states that CCBot currently does not execute JavaScript and does not use cookies.

How can I verify a real CCBot request?

Check the published Common Crawl IP ranges and perform forward-and-reverse DNS verification rather than trusting the user-agent string alone.

Continue with the tools

Build a policy from the guidance above, then test the complete file that is actually published.

Use the generator Use the checker

Related pages

Website allowing search and AI discovery routes while blocking a separate model-training collection route Allow Search, Block AI Training robots.txt Template

Use separate user-agent groups: block documented training or dataset agents such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot, while allowing ordinary search and dedicated AI-search crawlers.

 Website blocking several dedicated AI access routes while leaving a separate ordinary search route open Block All AI Crawlers robots.txt Template

Use explicit groups for known AI-related tokens rather than User-agent: *. This broad template blocks documented training, AI-search, dataset, and user-request agents while leaving ordinary search open.

 Website selectively blocking AI training crawler routes while keeping search discovery routes open How to Block AI Crawlers with robots.txt

Use the exact published User-agent name for each crawler you intend to restrict, add Disallow: / to that group, preserve any search or user-requested access you still want, then publish and test the live file. Do not use User-agent: * unless you intend to restrict ordinary search crawlers too.

 Website blocking selected AI training and dataset routes while keeping search discovery open robots.txt for AI Training: Build a Selective Opt-Out

To restrict AI training access, identify each provider’s exact training or dataset token and disallow it in a dedicated robots.txt group. Keep search crawlers in separate allowed groups, treat product-control tokens such as Google-Extended according to their documentation, and use authentication or server-side controls when access must be enforced.

 Voluntary robots.txt crawler rules shown separately from enforceable server-side access controls Does robots.txt Stop AI Scraping? Limits and Better Controls

Robots.txt can stop compliant AI crawlers from requesting selected URLs, but it cannot enforce access against unidentified scrapers, spoofed user agents, browsers, or tools that ignore the protocol. Use precise crawler rules for policy, then add authentication, authorization, rate limits, or firewall controls where access must actually be prevented.