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.
Overview
| Operated By | Ahrefs |
| Source | Official Website |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | August 11, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
AhrefsBot usually performs comprehensive, link-following crawls rather than spot checks. Visit frequency may rise while a customer actively monitors your site or a related market.
AhrefsBot's User Agent
| User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AhrefsBot/7.0; +http://ahrefs.com/robot/) |
How To Block AhrefsBot With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block AhrefsBot from accessing your entire website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to block all SEO crawlers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: AhrefsBot # https://knownagents.com/agents/ahrefsbot
Disallow: /Global Statistics for AhrefsBot
As of August 11, 2026, this data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
8% of top websites block AhrefsBot in their robots.txt files.
Overall SEO Crawler Traffic
2.2% of all web traffic came from SEO crawlers.
Top Visited Website Categories
The types of websites most frequently visited by AhrefsBot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block AhrefsBot?
Consider blocking AhrefsBot only if you do not want your pages included in SEO databases. It does not influence how search engines rank you, and blocking it will not hide backlinks to your site because those are discovered on the linking sites. For context, 8% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for AhrefsBot.
Does AhrefsBot Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. AhrefsBot is expected to follow robots.txt directives, so a disallow rule is the appropriate first step. Automatic Robots.txt can add and maintain that rule, while Agent Analytics lets you verify whether AhrefsBot respects it.
Does AhrefsBot Access Private Content?
No. AhrefsBot can reach only public pages, and authentication prevents it from accessing private content.
Why Is AhrefsBot Visiting My Website?
Your domain appears in the ranking, backlink, or competitor data maintained by AhrefsBot's operator. A customer may be tracking your site, one of your competitors, or a backlink that connects another site to yours.
How Can I Tell if AhrefsBot Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks visits from AhrefsBot and every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper, then authenticates each visit using AhrefsBot's published verification method. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "AhrefsBot". Look for comprehensive site crawls that follow internal links. A matching log entry alone is not proof because any bot can claim to be AhrefsBot.