What is ia_archiver?
ia_archiver is an archiver operated by Internet Archive. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Internet Archive |
| 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
ia_archiver periodically fetches complete pages rather than checking metadata alone. Visit frequency typically rises with your site's popularity and update cadence.
ia_archiver's User Agent
| User Agent | ia_archiver (+http://www.alexa.com/site/help/webmasters; crawler@alexa.com) |
How To Block ia_archiver With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block ia_archiver from accessing your entire website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to block all archivers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: ia_archiver # https://knownagents.com/agents/ia-archiver
Disallow: /Global Statistics for ia_archiver
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
5% of top websites block ia_archiver in their robots.txt files.
Overall Archiver Traffic
0.0% of all web traffic came from archivers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block ia_archiver?
Rarely. ia_archiver preserves snapshots of your pages through redesigns, migrations, and broken links. Blocking it prevents future captures but does not remove existing snapshots. To remove those, you must contact the archive directly. For context, 5% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for ia_archiver.
Does ia_archiver Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. ia_archiver 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 ia_archiver respects it.
Does ia_archiver Access Private Content?
No. ia_archiver archives only what an anonymous visitor can see. Anything public at crawl time may remain available in its archive long after you remove it from your site.
Why Is ia_archiver Visiting My Website?
ia_archiver is preserving your pages as part of a historical record. It returns periodically so the archive can capture how your content changes over time.
How Can I Tell if ia_archiver Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks ia_archiver 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 "ia_archiver". Look for a page and its embedded assets being fetched again after a long interval. Because ia_archiver does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.