1 warning · 1 notice · 4 info · 2 not checked · 4 pass
66 crawlers named · 12 unrecognised
What this file says about crawlers
Not checked
Who this file lets in
AI Data Scraper1 allowed, 12 blocked
Unrecognised all 11 blocked
AI Search Crawler all 8 blocked
Uncategorized all 7 blocked
Intelligence Gatherer1 allowed, 5 blocked
AI Assistant all 5 blocked
Undocumented AI Agent all 3 blocked
Fetcher3 allowed, 2 blocked
Path Access Checker
Detailed Analysis
Warning
4 rules name a location nobody would have guessed
Rules name a sensitive location made specific by a qualifier or by where it sits, or a spreadsheet by its full path.
Consequence. A bare "/backup" is in every scanner wordlist; "/backup-2023/" is in none. Listing it advertises the location to the readers least likely to honour the rule.
If that is not intended. Put these locations behind authentication or remove them; once they are protected, the line can stay or go. Responses behind authentication are not indexed, so they need no "noindex". Content that is public by design and only has to stay out of search wants a "noindex" without the Disallow: a crawler only sees a noindex on a page it may fetch.
Disallow: /athletic/global-color-test.phpL54"test" below the first level
Disallow: /athletic/global-font-test.phpL55"test" below the first level
Disallow: /athletic/following-feed-test/*L62"test" below the first level
Disallow: /athletic/feed-test/L64"test" below the first level
Notice
1 rule is declared more than once
The same directive and path appear repeatedly within one group.
Consequence. Duplicates have no effect on crawling, but they inflate the file toward the 500 KB limit and usually signal that the file is generated without dedup.
If that is not intended. Remove the repeats.
disallow: /searchL113Already declared on line 81 for *, Googlebot
If that is the intention. If your intention is to keep the site out of AI-generated answers, the current configuration achieves that.
Consequence. The site cannot be cited as a source in AI-generated answers. Unlike training crawlers these send referral traffic, so blocking them forfeits those visits.
If that is not intended. Remove the matching Disallow rule, or allow these agents on the sections you want cited.
If that is the intention. If your intention is to prevent assistants from fetching pages when a person asks for them, the current configuration achieves that.
Consequence. When someone asks an assistant to open a page on this site, it cannot be retrieved. These requests are made because a person asked for that specific page, not to collect content in bulk.
If that is not intended. Allow these agents globally, or only on the sections you want retrievable.
Common Crawl, widely redistributed as training data
"Disallow: /" blocks CCBot.
If that is the intention. If your intention is to prevent this content being used as model training data, the current configuration achieves that for these crawlers — the rest of the group is still allowed.
Consequence. These crawlers cannot retrieve content from the site, so it will not be collected as training data. They send no traffic back, and blocking them does not affect search rankings.
If that is not intended. Remove the site-wide block, or replace it with narrower path restrictions.
Info
2 rules suggest sensitive files may exist
Wildcard patterns name no location, but suggest such files may exist under public paths.
Consequence. A pattern such as "/*.sql$" discloses nothing a reader can request directly. It does say what kind of file the site expects to have lying around.
If that is not intended. Verify that files matching these patterns are not served.
All 6 checked search engines are allowed at the site root.
Pass
Social link previews can reach the site
All 5 checked social link previews are allowed at the site root.
Not checked
Page directives were not checked
The page answered HTTP 403, so its meta robots tags and X-Robots-Tag headers were not read.
Consequence. Nothing is known about whether this page asks to be kept out of search results. Its absence of directives here proves nothing either way.
If that is not intended. Analyse the page again once it answers normally to our bot.
Not checked
15 declared sitemaps were not checked
These sitemaps were not seen: each was blocked for our bot, left out by a limit, or did not answer in time. Each line says which.
Consequence. Nothing is known about whether they work. They are not counted against the file.
https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/new/espanol.xml.gzL350Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/sitemaps/new/espanol-collects.xml.gzL351Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/sitemapindex.xmlL352Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap-videos-index.xmlL353Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap-authors.xmlL354Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap-verticals.xmlL355Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap-teams.xmlL356Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap-cities.xmlL357Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap-players.xmlL358Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap-tags.xmlL359Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap-stats.xmlL360Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap-schedule.xmlL361Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap-roster.xmlL362Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/sitemap.xmlL363Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
https://www.nytimes.com/games-assets/v2/assets/sitemap/games.xmlL364Not fetched: only the first few sitemaps are fetched, within a time limit and the site's Crawl-delay
Pass
No syntax problems
Every line parses as a directive crawlers understand.
Pass
File size is 8.3 KB
Comfortably within the 500 KB that crawlers will read.
