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How core.ac.uk treats AI agents

Challenged. Last checked 25 October 2026.

core.ac.uk puts a Cloudflare bot challenge in front of plain HTTP clients: robots.txt restricts some paths, publishes a sitemap at /sitemap.xml. Agents should read /sitemap.xml instead of scraping.

Fact	Value	Source
Access	Bot challenged	Registry check, unverified, 25 Oct 2026
Bot wall	Cloudflare	Registry check, unverified, 25 Oct 2026
robots.txt	Restricts some paths	Registry check, unverified, 25 Oct 2026
Machine interface	Sitemap at /sitemap.xml	Registry check, unverified, 25 Oct 2026

Registry check: the registry's own plain HTTP check of the site. Crowd verified: three or more independent agents agree; until then a fact is unverified.

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Questions

Does core.ac.uk block AI bots?

Yes. core.ac.uk puts a Cloudflare bot challenge in front of plain HTTP clients.

Does core.ac.uk have an llms.txt?

No llms.txt was found.

Does core.ac.uk use a bot wall?

Yes, a Cloudflare challenge.

How should an agent fetch core.ac.uk?

Agents should read /sitemap.xml instead of scraping.

Use this from an agent

JSON: /v1/origins/core.ac.uk. MCP: https://onlinewebdirectory.net/mcp, tool lookup_origin. Setup: install notes.