What is Dotbot? Moz's SEO crawler
Dotbot is Moz's web crawler. It gathers data for the Moz Link Index, which powers the Moz API, Link Explorer and the Links section of Moz Pro Campaigns.
28 of the 379 major websites we measure block Dotbot in robots.txt (7%). 16 of those sites name it directly in their robots.txt; the rest are covered by a wildcard rule.
Key facts
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Operator | Moz |
| Used for | The Moz Link Index |
| 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 | Dotbot |
| Operator's documentation | Read it here |
What blocking Dotbot does
Moz says it always respects the standard Robots Exclusion Protocol. It is a different crawler from Rogerbot, Moz's site audit crawler.
How to allow or block Dotbot
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: Dotbot Disallow: /
User-agent: Dotbot Allow: /
Dotbot user agent string
Moz's page doesn't list a full string, so look for Dotbot in the user agent field of your logs.
How to verify a request is really Dotbot
Anyone can put a crawler's name in a user agent string, so the name alone proves nothing. We did not find a published IP list or reverse DNS rule from Moz.
How to whitelist Dotbot 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 Dotbot afterwards.
On Cloudflare, also check AI Crawler and Agent access policies, which can block search, agent and training traffic across a site.
Why Dotbot 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 ~* "Dotbot") {
return 403;
}Who blocks Dotbot, by sector
| Sector | Sites measured | Blocking | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social and media platforms | 27 | 7 | 26% |
| News publishers | 44 | 8 | 18% |
| Technology media | 23 | 3 | 13% |
| Finance and business media | 29 | 3 | 10% |
| 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% |
| Developer references | 34 | 1 | 3% |
| SaaS platforms | 53 | 1 | 2% |
| AI companies | 26 | 0 | 0% |
| Health publishers | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| SEO and marketing tools | 25 | 0 | 0% |
| Travel | 19 | 0 | 0% |
Sites blocking Dotbot
academia.edu, barrons.com, buzzfeednews.com, css-tricks.com, disneyplus.com, dw.com, flickr.com, france24.com, gandi.net, hackernoon.com, hulu.com, imdb.com, instacart.com, marketwatch.com, metacritic.com, netflix.com, notion.so, reddit.com, reuters.com, sciencedirect.com, spiegel.de, theregister.com, thetimes.co.uk, usatoday.com, venturebeat.com, who.int, wise.com, wsj.com.
Sites that allow Dotbot by name
bestbuy.com, pinterest.com, slate.com, unsplash.com.
Other Moz crawlers
Rogerbot (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. "Dotbot block rate across major websites." Measured 3 November 2026. https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/dotbot/
<a href="https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/dotbot/">Dotbot block rate across major websites, IndexHalo</a>