Microsoft has confirmed that Reddit has blocked access to alternative search engines. Updates to Reddit’s robots.txt file stopped Bing from crawling the site. This follows Reddit’s agreement with Google.
Microsoft made a statement about Reddit blocking Bing
A recent study revealed that alternative search engines are no longer displaying Reddit results. This development comes after a comprehensive agreement was signed between Google and the social media platform. Reddit regarding Robots.txt those he said.
Microsoft confirmed that Bing was indeed blocked by Reddit. A Microsoft representative said in a statement: “We respect the Robots.txt standard. Bing stopped crawling Reddit after Reddit implemented the updated robots.txt file on July 1.”
The robots.txt protocol allows websites to configure which pages a web browser can or cannot access. These changes are non-binding and essentially operate on an honor system.
When a website updates its robots.txt file so that certain web browsers and search engines cannot access it, there is no technical barrier preventing those crawlers from ignoring the request. Microsoft agreed to Reddit’s request in this case, but it was recently revealed that a browser connected to its Perplexity AI search engine had ignored a publisher’s requests.
Reddit’s request comes a month after the company first confirmed plans to update the robots.txt file. The company noted that there had been a surge in “clearly commercial entities scraping Reddit.” Reddit’s move follows a deal it struck with Google earlier this year that would allow the platform to use its user-generated content for AI training.
In a statement, a Reddit representative said that the decision to block alternative search engines had nothing to do with the Google deal: “This decision is not related to our recent collaboration with Google. We held talks with many search engines. “We were unable to reach agreement with all search engines because some were unwilling or unable to make enforceable commitments regarding the use of Reddit content.”
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