Andi Search
Operated by Andi
Quick Facts
- User-Agent:
- Andibot
- Category:
- AI & LLM Bots
- Operator:
- Andi
- Safety:
- Safe
- Blocking Impact:
- Low - No SEO ranking impact
- SEO Impact Score:
- 2/10
- Official docs:
- None published by Andi
Reported, not operator documented
Andi has not published a crawler page that names Andibot. It is listed here on our own evidence. Verified by AI Crawler Check: 67 of the 5,583 valid robots.txt files in the Tranco top 10,000 carry a rule for Andibot, so site owners treat it as a real crawler name (how we measure this). That proves the spelling is in use, not who sends it. Reported Andi search crawler. No vendor page.
What that means for you: the Andibot rule on this page is the best available spelling, but Andi has made no statement of purpose, crawl rate or robots.txt compliance. Treat a Andibot request in your logs as a clue, not proof of who sent it, and add a firewall rule if that traffic matters to you. If the operator publishes documentation, this profile moves to Official docs.
What is Andi Search?
Andi Search is a dual-purpose AI crawler operated by Andi. It both indexes content for AI search answers and may retrieve pages on demand for user queries. Allowing it can improve your visibility inside Andi's AI answers.
Andi Search is a dual-purpose AI crawler operated by Andi. It both indexes content for AI search answers and may retrieve pages on demand for user queries. Allowing it can improve your visibility inside Andi's AI answers.
Andi Search uses the user-agent token Andibot. You can control it via robots.txt, meta tags (noai), or the emerging llms.txt standard. Robots.txt is voluntary; for hard enforcement, combine it with server-level IP blocking.
What happens if you block Andi Search?
User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.Want to see whether Andi Search actually visits you? Read how do I monitor AI bot traffic to my website?
How to block Andi Search with robots.txt
<code>User-agent: Andibot</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.
Is Andi Search safe to allow?
What does Andi Search do?
Understanding Andi Search's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.
- Indexes content for AI search answers
- Retrieves pages on demand for user queries
- Can surface your content as AI citations
- Allowing it improves AI-answer visibility
- robots.txt behaviour not documented by the operator
Andi Search in context
Andi Search is a training crawler operated by Andi. In plain terms, it collects pages both for training and for search or answers. Our database files it under AI and LLM crawlers and ranks it Tier 2, important crawlers from established AI and search operators. 74 of the 104 AI and LLM crawlers in our database share this tier.
Its safety rating is safe and its blocking impact is low. So the decision about Andi Search rests on what you want from Andi, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.
How site owners treat Andi Search
In our own scan of the Tranco top 10,000 (5,583 valid robots.txt files), 67 files (1.2%) name Andibot in a User-agent line. That shows site owners treat the token as a real crawler worth a rule. It does not, on its own, prove who operates it.
Does it follow robots.txt?
Andi Search's operator does not clearly document how it treats robots.txt. Write the Andi Search rule anyway, then confirm in your logs that its requests stop.
Andi crawlers and close alternatives
Andi runs only this one crawler in our database, so a single User-agent: Andibot group controls everything Andi fetches through it.
Other AI and LLM crawlers that do the same job (collects pages both for training and for search or answers) include PerplexityBot from Perplexity AI, cohere-ai from Cohere, DeepSeekBot from DeepSeek, DoubaoBot from ByteDance, GrokBot from xAI, iAskBot from iAsk. Deciding about Andi Search is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.
We first recorded Andibot on June 18, 2026. We could not find a page where Andi names it, so treat the token as reported rather than documented.
Which rule Andi Search actually follows
Andi Search reads exactly one group in robots.txt, the most specific one that names Andibot, and never combines rules across groups. This short file shows the trap:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/
User-agent: Andibot
Disallow: /drafts/- Find the group. Andi Search looks for a group naming
Andibot. One exists, so it ignoresUser-agent: *completely. - Apply only that group. It is refused
/drafts/and nothing else. - The surprise.
/private/is open to Andi Search, because that rule lives in the*group it no longer reads. To keep it out of both, repeatDisallow: /private/inside its own group.
Test yourself: does a rule under User-agent: * apply to Andi Search if the file also has a User-agent: Andibot group?
No. Once a group names it, Andi Search reads only that group. Put every rule you want it to follow inside its own group.
Test yourself: will blocking Andi Search remove your pages from AI answers?
No. Andi Search collects training data. Blocking it changes what future models learn, not which pages AI answers cite today.
Test yourself: is User-agent: andibot the same as User-agent: Andibot?
Yes. RFC 9309 makes user-agent matching case-insensitive. Paths are a different story: Disallow: /Blog/ does not block /blog/.
Should you allow Andi Search? Decide by situation
| If you are... | Recommended setting |
|---|---|
| You publish content and want AI answers to cite it | Your call. Andi Search is a training crawler, so blocking it does not remove you from AI answers; retrieval crawlers do that job. |
| You license content and want to stop AI training | Block it by name with User-agent: Andibot and Disallow: /. |
| You run an online shop | Allow it unless your logs show it is costly. |
| Your server is under load from bots | Rate-limit before blocking. It is rated safe in our database. |
Check Andi Search on your own site
- Open
/robots.txton your domain and search forAndibot. If it is not named, it followsUser-agent: *. - List the
Disallowlines in the group Andi Search follows and test your key URLs against them; the longest match wins, andAllowwins a tie. - Look beyond the file. A firewall or bot manager can refuse Andi Search even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
- Run our robots.txt AI crawler test to see how Andi Search and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.
Common mistakes with Andi Search
The errors we see most often with Andi Search in the files and firewalls we test:
- Assuming that blocking Andi Search removes you from AI answers. It is a training crawler; AI answers are fed by retrieval and user-triggered crawlers with different tokens.
- Blocking Andi Search with a broad
User-agent: *rule that also catches search engines. NameAndibotin its own group instead. - Expecting a Andi Search block to remove content already collected. robots.txt only affects future visits.
All three hide inside a file that looks correct, so check Andi Search from outside after every change.
Spotting Andi Search in your logs
robots.txt says what Andi Search may do; your access logs show what it actually did.
Count requests
On a server with standard Nginx or Apache logs, this counts matching requests per day (adjust the log path for your host):
grep -iE "Andibot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
| awk '{print $4}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -cAnd this shows which paths it requested most, which is the quickest way to see whether your Disallow lines are being respected:
grep -iE "Andibot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
| awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20Check the requests are genuine
Anyone can send the Andi Search user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:
Andibot: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where the operator documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable Andi Search request with caution.
Frequently Asked Questions
What user-agent string does Andi Search use?
Andibot. Evidence that the spelling is in real use comes from our own robots.txt study: 67 of the 5,583 valid robots.txt files in the Tranco top 10,000 name it (fetched October 20, 2026), not from Andi, which has not published crawler documentation naming it. Use it in robots.txt as the best available match, and treat a request carrying it as a clue rather than proof of who sent it.Is Andi Search safe?
Will blocking Andi Search hurt my SEO?
User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.How do I block Andi Search in robots.txt?
/robots.txt file:User-agent: Andibot Disallow: /
This instructs Andi Search not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g.,
Disallow: /blog/).Does Andi Search respect robots.txt?
Andibot will stop a client that chooses to honour it; for enforcement, add a firewall or CDN rule as well.How do I verify if Andi Search is crawling my site?
Andibot (for example grep -i "Andibot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Because the operator publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern, a match shows that something used the name, not that Andi sent it.