Allow or block Gemini-Deep-Research on WordPress: the virtual robots.txt, the file, and the filter

Put a “User-agent: Gemini-Deep-Research” group with “Disallow: /” in robots.txt: in the file in the site’s root if there is one, otherwise through an SEO plugin’s editor (Yoast SEO → Tools → File Editor) or the robots_txt filter.

This response

You are ClaudeBot (Anthropic). Citable recognised you as an AI agent, so this is https://getcitable.in/crawlers/gemini-deep-research/wordpress with the UI removed — the content only. A browser asking for the same address gets the full designed page.

Gemini-Deep-Research, and where WordPress keeps the rule

Gemini-Deep-Research is a crawler run by Google. It reads pages at the moment a person asks a question, to answer it.

WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt when there is no robots.txt file in the site’s root. Once a file exists the web server answers with it, and WordPress is never asked.

Step by step

What to paste

A group that names a crawler replaces the * group for that crawler; it does not add to it. Paths the * group closes are open to a crawler with its own group unless they are repeated there.

Refuse Gemini-Deep-Research:

User-agent: Gemini-Deep-Research
Disallow: /

Allow Gemini-Deep-Research:

User-agent: Gemini-Deep-Research
Allow: /

The same refusal, through WordPress’s robots_txt filter:

add_filter( 'robots_txt', function ( $output, $public ) {
    $output .= "\nUser-agent: Gemini-Deep-Research\nDisallow: /\n";
    return $output;
}, 10, 2 );

What trips people up

A robots.txt file in the root wins. While it exists, a plugin’s editor and the robots_txt filter change nothing a crawler will see. Yoast’s File Editor is also absent when the install has file editing disabled.

Asked, or actually refused?

WordPress itself refuses nobody by user agent. A refusal that is enforced is made by the web server in front of it; see Gemini-Deep-Research on Apache or on Nginx, whichever the host runs.

Check it yourself

A 200 means the name is let through; a 403 means something in front of the page refuses it. This tests the name from your own address. A platform that checks a crawler’s address as well may treat the real Gemini-Deep-Research differently.

The request:

curl -I -A "Gemini-Deep-Research" https://your-site.example/

Questions

How do I block Gemini-Deep-Research on WordPress?

Put a “User-agent: Gemini-Deep-Research” group with “Disallow: /” in robots.txt: in the file in the site’s root if there is one, otherwise through an SEO plugin’s editor (Yoast SEO → Tools → File Editor) or the robots_txt filter.

How do I allow Gemini-Deep-Research on WordPress?

A crawler that robots.txt does not name follows the * group, so Gemini-Deep-Research needs no rule to be allowed. To allow it by name, add the Allow block.

Can WordPress actually stop Gemini-Deep-Research, or only ask it?

WordPress itself refuses nobody by user agent. A refusal that is enforced is made by the web server in front of it; see Gemini-Deep-Research on Apache or on Nginx, whichever the host runs.

Does a rule for Gemini-Deep-Research affect Googlebot or my Google rankings?

No. Googlebot goes by its own name and follows its own rules; a group or a firewall rule for Gemini-Deep-Research does not apply to it.

Checked against WordPress's own documentation on 1 October 2026

Related

About Citable

Citable strips the UI from a website for AI agents and serves them only the content.

When an AI agent — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or any of the 81 that Citable recognises — opens a page, Citable removes the theme, scripts, navigation and layout and serves only the content: the same facts, at the same URL, on the site's own domain. People and Google still get the full designed page.

How it works: https://getcitable.in/how-it-works · Summary for AI agents: https://getcitable.in/llms.txt


Source: https://getcitable.in/crawlers/gemini-deep-research/wordpress · Citable · Run the free audit · llms.txt · getcitable@gmail.com