What is AhrefsBot? Ahrefs's SEO crawler
AhrefsBot is the web crawler Ahrefs says powers the database for both Ahrefs, its marketing intelligence platform, and Yep, its independent search engine.
33 of the 379 major websites we measure block AhrefsBot in robots.txt (9%). 35 of those sites name it directly in their robots.txt; the rest are covered by a wildcard rule.
Key facts
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Operator | Ahrefs |
| Used for | Ahrefs and the Yep search engine |
| Type | SEO tool. Collects web data for an SEO tool. Listed here because people look it up beside AI crawlers. It isn't counted in the AI crawler figures. |
| robots.txt token | AhrefsBot |
| Operator's documentation | Read it here |
What blocking AhrefsBot does
Ahrefs says AhrefsBot obeys robots.txt and crawl delay.
How to allow or block AhrefsBot
Add one of these groups to the robots.txt file at the root of your domain. It is a stated preference that well-behaved crawlers read, not an enforcement mechanism.
User-agent: AhrefsBot Disallow: /
User-agent: AhrefsBot Allow: /
AhrefsBot user agent string
The string Ahrefs documents. Version numbers can change, so match on the name.
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AhrefsBot/7.0; +http://ahrefs.com/robot/)
How to verify a request is really AhrefsBot
Anyone can put a crawler's name in a user agent string, so the name alone proves nothing. Ahrefs says it crawls from publicly published IP ranges, and that the reverse DNS suffix of those addresses is always ahrefs.com or ahrefs.net.
How to whitelist AhrefsBot in a firewall or CDN
robots.txt only states a preference. A firewall, CDN or bot protection service can still refuse the request, and the crawler then gets an error even though robots.txt allows it.
- Check that no group in your robots.txt blocks it, using the rule above.
- Add an allow rule in your firewall or CDN that matches the name in the user agent. Keep the rule narrow, because anyone can copy a name.
- Check your server logs for a 200 response from AhrefsBot afterwards.
On Cloudflare, also check AI Crawler and Agent access policies, which can block search, agent and training traffic across a site.
Why AhrefsBot gets a 403 or 405 error
A 403 means the server refused the request, which usually points to a firewall or bot rule. A 405 means the server refused the request's method, so check any rule that only permits certain methods. A crawler that obeys robots.txt won't request a page it is told to avoid, so an error in your logs points to your server's configuration. To stop it deliberately at the server, this nginx rule returns a 403:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "AhrefsBot") {
return 403;
}Who blocks AhrefsBot, by sector
| Sector | Sites measured | Blocking | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| News publishers | 44 | 13 | 30% |
| Social and media platforms | 27 | 7 | 26% |
| Technology media | 23 | 4 | 17% |
| Reference and research | 25 | 2 | 8% |
| Government and institutions | 17 | 1 | 6% |
| E-commerce and retail | 19 | 1 | 5% |
| Hosting and infrastructure | 22 | 1 | 5% |
| SEO and marketing tools | 25 | 1 | 4% |
| Developer references | 34 | 1 | 3% |
| Finance and business media | 29 | 1 | 3% |
| SaaS platforms | 53 | 1 | 2% |
| AI companies | 26 | 0 | 0% |
| Health publishers | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| Travel | 19 | 0 | 0% |
Sites blocking AhrefsBot
academia.edu, bbc.co.uk, css-tricks.com, disneyplus.com, dw.com, elpais.com, flickr.com, france24.com, gandi.net, globeandmail.com, hackernoon.com, hulu.com, imdb.com, instacart.com, metacritic.com, nbcnews.com, netflix.com, notion.so, reddit.com, reuters.com, sciencedirect.com, serpstat.com, spiegel.de, theguardian.com, theregister.com, thetimes.co.uk, theverge.com, usatoday.com, venturebeat.com, vox.com, washingtonpost.com, who.int, wise.com.
Sites that allow AhrefsBot by name
barrons.com, bleepingcomputer.com, digitaltrends.com, forbes.com, gov.uk, kayak.com, marketwatch.com, mongodb.com, moz.com, nhs.uk, pinterest.com, skyscanner.net, slate.com, unsplash.com, wsj.com.
Other Ahrefs crawlers
AhrefsSiteAudit (SEO site audit).
See all 30 AI crawlers, the rule change log or the full study. Being reachable is only the first step: how AI search engines choose what to cite covers the rest.
Cite this data
You are welcome to quote or republish these figures. Please credit IndexHalo with a link to this page (CC BY 4.0). All our datasets are on the data page.
IndexHalo. "AhrefsBot block rate across major websites." Measured 3 November 2026. https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/ahrefsbot/
<a href="https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/ahrefsbot/">AhrefsBot block rate across major websites, IndexHalo</a>