What is ElevenlabsBot? ElevenLabs's AI crawler
ElevenlabsBot fetches pages that ElevenLabs customers add to their agents' knowledge bases, when they add them and when they refresh them.
16 of the 379 major websites we measure block ElevenlabsBot in robots.txt (4%), making it number 29 of the 30 AI crawlers we track for how often it is blocked. 1 of those sites name it directly in their robots.txt; the rest are covered by a wildcard rule.
Key facts
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Operator | ElevenLabs |
| Used for | ElevenLabs agents' knowledge bases |
| Type | On-demand fetch. Visits a page because someone asked a question. Several operators say robots.txt may not apply. |
| robots.txt token | ElevenlabsBot |
| Operator's documentation | Read it here |
What blocking ElevenlabsBot does
ElevenLabs says it honors robots.txt, and that a site can allow ElevenlabsBot so agents can use its pages while disallowing ElevenlabsCrawler.
How to allow or block ElevenlabsBot
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: ElevenlabsBot Disallow: /
User-agent: ElevenlabsBot Allow: /
ElevenlabsBot user agent string
The string ElevenLabs documents. Version numbers can change, so match on the name.
ElevenlabsBot/1.0
How to verify a request is really ElevenlabsBot
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 ElevenLabs.
How to whitelist ElevenlabsBot 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 ElevenlabsBot afterwards.
On Cloudflare, also check AI Crawler and Agent access policies, which can block search, agent and training traffic across a site.
Why ElevenlabsBot 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 ~* "ElevenlabsBot") {
return 403;
}Which sites recently changed their rules for ElevenlabsBot?
None that lasted since 17 August 2026. See the full change log.
Who blocks ElevenlabsBot, by sector
| Sector | Sites measured | Blocking | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social and media platforms | 27 | 7 | 26% |
| Technology media | 23 | 2 | 9% |
| Reference and research | 25 | 2 | 8% |
| Finance and business media | 29 | 2 | 7% |
| E-commerce and retail | 19 | 1 | 5% |
| News publishers | 44 | 2 | 5% |
| AI companies | 26 | 0 | 0% |
| Developer references | 34 | 0 | 0% |
| Government and institutions | 17 | 0 | 0% |
| Health publishers | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| Hosting and infrastructure | 22 | 0 | 0% |
| SaaS platforms | 53 | 0 | 0% |
| SEO and marketing tools | 25 | 0 | 0% |
| Travel | 19 | 0 | 0% |
Sites blocking ElevenlabsBot
academia.edu, barrons.com, disneyplus.com, flickr.com, hackernoon.com, hulu.com, imdb.com, instacart.com, marketwatch.com, netflix.com, pinterest.com, reddit.com, sciencedirect.com, theregister.com, thetimes.co.uk, wsj.com.
Sites that allow ElevenlabsBot by name
Other ElevenLabs crawlers
ElevenlabsCrawler (model training).
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. "ElevenlabsBot block rate across major websites." Measured 3 November 2026. https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/elevenlabsbot/
<a href="https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/elevenlabsbot/">ElevenlabsBot block rate across major websites, IndexHalo</a>