What is AhrefsBot?
AhrefsBot is Ahrefs' web crawler that powers both the Ahrefs marketing intelligence platform and Yep search engine, constantly crawling the web to build a comprehensive link database. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Category
Expected Behavior
AhrefsBot maps sites the way its customers' SEO tools need, following internal links to build a full picture of structure, content, and ranking signals. Expect thorough crawls rather than spot checks, with frequency rising when your site or your competitors are actively monitored in its tools.
Overview
| Operated By | Ahrefs |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | July 7, 2026 |
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
As of July 7, 2026, 7% of top websites block AhrefsBot in their robots.txt files.
Overall SEO Crawler Traffic
As of July 7, 2026, 2.6% of all web traffic came from SEO crawlers.
Top Visited Website Categories
This data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the world's top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
AhrefsBot's User Agent
| User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AhrefsBot/7.0; +http://ahrefs.com/robot/) |
Access other known user agents and IP addresses using the Enterprise API.
How To Block AhrefsBot
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block AhrefsBot from accessing your entire website. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: AhrefsBot # https://knownagents.com/agents/ahrefsbot
Disallow: /Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block AhrefsBot?
Only if you want your own pages and outbound links out of those tools. AhrefsBot collects the ranking and backlink data behind SEO tools, likely including ones you or your agency use, and it does not change how search engines rank you. Blocking it will not hide your backlink profile either, because backlinks are discovered on the sites that link to you. For comparison, 7% of the top websites we track already have robots.txt rules for AhrefsBot.
Does AhrefsBot Respect Robots.txt?
Yes. AhrefsBot is expected to honor robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule is the right first move. Automatic Robots.txt adds and maintains that rule for you, and Agent Analytics confirms AhrefsBot actually honors it.
Does AhrefsBot Access Private Content?
Login walls stop it. AhrefsBot analyzes public pages for rankings, links, and site structure.
Why Is AhrefsBot Visiting My Website?
Your domain shows up in the ranking, backlink, and competitor data AhrefsBot's operator sells. If anyone tracks your site or your competitors in an SEO tool, AhrefsBot visits you.
How Can I Tell if AhrefsBot Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks AhrefsBot visits and every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper alongside it, then authenticates each visit against AhrefsBot's published verification method. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user agent string contains "AhrefsBot". Look for full site crawls that follow your internal links. A log match is still not proof, because any bot can claim to be AhrefsBot.