Websites blocking Bytespider
ByteDance's web crawler, widely reported to collect training data for its AI models. ByteDance publishes little documentation for it, and it has a reputation for high request volumes.
Operated by ByteDance · Training crawler
5.94%
block Bytespider
1.46 million of 24.63 million domains with a known robots.txt policy
2.36%
block it by name
581K domains, the rest inherit a blanket
* block
2.47%
restrict it by name
608K domains name it and close some of its paths
5.09%
name it in robots.txt
1.25 million domains give it rules of their own
Data for Sep 2026. All four percentages
divide by the same 24.63 million domains. Blocked counts both
explicit User-agent: Bytespider blocks and blanket
* blocks the crawler inherits.
Blocking trend
2.5%
5%
7.5%
10%
Aug 2026
Sep 2026
Share of domains with a known robots.txt policy
blocking Bytespider in each monthly crawl. The denominator moves with each crawl and is
defined in the methodology.
Historical mentions, HTTP Archive
2.5%
5%
7.5%
10%
Jul 2021
Oct 2022
Feb 2024
Jun 2025
Sep 2026
Share of sites in each month's
HTTP Archive crawl whose robots.txt named
Bytespider. This series counts
mentions only (the archive keeps no rule text), comes from a different population than our own
crawl above, and the two are never merged.
High-authority sites blocking Bytespider by name
| Domain | OPROpen Page Rank | Blocking since |
|---|---|---|
| linkedin.com | 9.82/10 | Aug 2026 |
| pinterest.com | 9.58/10 | Oct 2026 |
| cloudfront.net | 9.47/10 | Oct 2026 |
| nytimes.com | 9.28/10 | Aug 2026 |
| yahoo.com | 9.27/10 | Oct 2026 |
| amazon.co.jp | 9.16/10 | Sep 2026 |
| substack.com | 9.13/10 | Oct 2026 |
| businessinsider.com | 9.11/10 | Oct 2026 |
| cookielaw.org | 9.10/10 | Aug 2026 |
| usatoday.com | 9.08/10 | Sep 2026 |
| wired.com | 9.07/10 | Oct 2026 |
| bandcamp.com | 9.06/10 | Aug 2026 |
| lnkd.in | 9.05/10 | Aug 2026 |
| ed.gov | 9.05/10 | Sep 2026 |
| pexels.com | 9.03/10 | Aug 2026 |
| pixabay.com | 9.02/10 | Oct 2026 |
| investopedia.com | 9.01/10 | Oct 2026 |
| amazon.fr | 8.99/10 | Sep 2026 |
| healthline.com | 8.98/10 | Aug 2026 |
| nhk.or.jp | 8.98/10 | Aug 2026 |
| wa.gov | 8.93/10 | Oct 2026 |
| quora.com | 8.92/10 | Aug 2026 |
| uol.com.br | 8.92/10 | Oct 2026 |
| huffpost.com | 8.91/10 | Aug 2026 |
| amazon.ca | 8.91/10 | Oct 2026 |
| newsweek.com | 8.90/10 | Sep 2026 |
| heise.de | 8.88/10 | Oct 2026 |
| mashable.com | 8.87/10 | Sep 2026 |
| francetvinfo.fr | 8.87/10 | Aug 2026 |
| smh.com.au | 8.86/10 | Sep 2026 |
Sites whose robots.txt names Bytespider (or a legacy
alias) with a full block, ranked by Open Page Rank. Sites blocking every crawler with a blanket
* rule are counted above but not listed here. Since dates start at our first
observation of the rule.