What is DotBot?
DotBot is Moz's web crawler that gathers web data for the Moz Link Index, providing data used in Moz Pro campaigns, Link Explorer, and the Moz Links API to analyze website backlinks and SEO metrics. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Moz |
| 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
DotBot 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.
DotBot's User Agent
| User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; DotBot/1.2; +https://opensiteexplorer.org/dotbot; help@moz.com) |
How To Block DotBot With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block DotBot 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: DotBot # https://knownagents.com/agents/dotbot
Disallow: /Global Statistics for DotBot
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
3% of top websites block DotBot 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 DotBot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block DotBot?
Consider blocking DotBot 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, 3% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for DotBot.
Does DotBot Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. DotBot 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 DotBot respects it.
Does DotBot Access Private Content?
No. DotBot can reach only public pages, and authentication prevents it from accessing private content.
Why Is DotBot Visiting My Website?
Your domain appears in the ranking, backlink, or competitor data maintained by DotBot'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 DotBot Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks DotBot visits in real time alongside every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "DotBot". Look for comprehensive site crawls that follow internal links. Because DotBot does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.