CCBot: what this bot is and how to allow or block it
CCBot is a bot from Common Crawl that collects pages to train AI models. It does not directly affect AI assistant answers with search: search bots collect those.
CCBot User-Agent
Common Crawl publishes the full User-Agent string in the bot's documentation. In robots.txt the token CCBot is enough.
How to allow CCBot
Add this group to robots.txt at the site root. Close service sections in the same group: a bot with its own group does not read the «User-agent: *» rules.
User-agent: CCBot Allow: /
robots.txt is not everything. If your site uses Cloudflare or other bot protection, it may serve CCBot a 403 error or a challenge page even when robots.txt allows everything.
How to block CCBot
To block the whole site, add the group below to robots.txt. The rule works for bots that respect robots.txt.
User-agent: CCBot Disallow: /
What happens if you block CCBot
New model versions will not learn from your pages. Visibility in answers with search does not change — search bots are responsible for that.
How to check whether CCBot visits your site
Search the web server logs for the token. The User-Agent string is easy to fake, so to be sure, check the IP address against the ranges if Common Crawl publishes them.
grep "CCBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log
Does your site let CCBot in
Free 15-second check: we read your robots.txt and request your site as AI bots — you see which ones the server and bot protection let in and which they block.
Questions and answers
Should I block CCBot?
It is your call. Blocking CCBot does not remove your site from AI answers with search, but models will not learn about you in training either. If content is your main asset, block it; if awareness matters, leave it open.
How do I know whether CCBot visits my site?
Search the web server logs for the token. The User-Agent string is easy to fake, so to be sure, check the IP address against the ranges if Common Crawl publishes them.
Is it enough to allow CCBot in robots.txt?
robots.txt is not everything. If your site uses Cloudflare or other bot protection, it may serve CCBot a 403 error or a challenge page even when robots.txt allows everything.