Safe Official docs AI & LLM Bots

Kimi Search

Operated by Moonshot AI

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
Kimi-SearchBot
Category:
AI & LLM Bots
Operator:
Moonshot AI
Safety:
Safe
Blocking Impact:
Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:
2/10
Official docs:
www.kimi.ai

Confirmed by the operator

Moonshot AI names Kimi-SearchBot on its own documentation page, linked above. The token, purpose and robots.txt behaviour on this profile come from that page, re-checked on October 19, 2026.

What is Kimi Search?

Kimi Search is an AI search-index crawler operated by Moonshot AI. It collects and indexes web content so it can be surfaced as citations or answers inside Moonshot AI's AI search experience. Allowing Kimi Search can increase your visibility in AI-powered search results, which is why most sites choose to permit it.

Kimi Search is an AI search-index crawler operated by Moonshot AI. It collects and indexes web content so it can be surfaced as citations or answers inside Moonshot AI's AI search experience. Allowing Kimi Search can increase your visibility in AI-powered search results, which is why most sites choose to permit it.
Kimi Search uses the user-agent token Kimi-SearchBot. 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 Kimi Search?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Kimi Search does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Kimi Search is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.
Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

Want to see whether Kimi Search actually visits you? Read how do I monitor AI bot traffic to my website?

How to block Kimi Search with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block Kimi Search if ($http_user_agent ~* "Kimi-SearchBot") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block Kimi Search SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Kimi-SearchBot" bad_bot Order Allow,Deny Allow from all Deny from env=bad_bot
Meta robots tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
X-Robots-Tag header
X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is Kimi Search safe to allow?

Yes, Kimi Search is a safe and legitimate crawler operated by Moonshot AI. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.
Verify by reverse-DNS lookup: legitimate Kimi Search requests resolve to Moonshot AI's domain.

What does Kimi Search do?

Understanding Kimi Search's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

  • Indexes web pages for AI-powered search answers
  • Surfaces your content as citations inside AI search results
  • Builds a knowledge index used to answer user questions
  • Allowing it can increase visibility in AI search
  • Respects robots.txt directives

Kimi Search in context

Kimi Search is a retrieval crawler that feeds AI search answers operated by Moonshot AI. In plain terms, it builds a search or answer index. 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 Kimi Search rests on what you want from Moonshot AI, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.

How site owners treat Kimi Search

Our robots.txt study of the Tranco top 10,000 did not track Kimi-SearchBot as a named token, so we do not publish an adoption figure for it. If you run a large site, your own logs are the best evidence of how often it visits.

Does it follow robots.txt?

Kimi Search's operator does not clearly document how it treats robots.txt. Write the Kimi Search rule anyway, then confirm in your logs that its requests stop.

Moonshot AI crawlers and close alternatives

Kimi Search is one of 3 Moonshot AI crawlers in our database. A User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot group controls Kimi Search only; the other Moonshot AI tokens below need their own lines.

  • Kimi-SearchBot: this crawler (Tier 2)
  • Kimi-User: Kimi (Moonshot AI), fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it (Tier 2)
  • KimiBot: Kimi Crawler, collects pages to train AI models (Tier 2)

To give Kimi Search the same answer as its siblings, stack User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot with their lines above one set of rules; to treat Kimi Search differently, give it its own group.

Other AI and LLM crawlers that do the same job (builds a search or answer index) include AddSearchBot from AddSearch, AIWebIndex from Lyrenth, atlassian-bot from Atlassian, AzureAI-SearchBot from Microsoft, Cloudflare-AI-Search from Cloudflare, Cloudflare-AutoRAG from Cloudflare. Deciding about Kimi Search is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.

We first recorded Kimi-SearchBot on September 22, 2026. Moonshot AI documents it on kimi.ai, and we recheck that page before each release.

Which rule Kimi Search actually follows

Kimi Search reads exactly one group in robots.txt, the most specific one that names Kimi-SearchBot, and never combines rules across groups. This short file shows the trap:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot
Disallow: /drafts/
  1. Find the group. Kimi Search looks for a group naming Kimi-SearchBot. One exists, so it ignores User-agent: * completely.
  2. Apply only that group. It is refused /drafts/ and nothing else.
  3. The surprise. /private/ is open to Kimi Search, because that rule lives in the * group it no longer reads. To keep it out of both, repeat Disallow: /private/ inside its own group.
Test yourself: does a rule under User-agent: * apply to Kimi Search if the file also has a User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot group?

No. Once a group names it, Kimi Search reads only that group. Put every rule you want it to follow inside its own group.

Test yourself: will blocking Kimi Search remove your pages from AI answers?

Often, yes. Kimi Search is a retrieval crawler that feeds AI search answers, so pages it cannot fetch can drop out of the answers or results it supports.

Test yourself: is User-agent: kimi-searchbot the same as User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot?

Yes. RFC 9309 makes user-agent matching case-insensitive. Paths are a different story: Disallow: /Blog/ does not block /blog/.

Should you allow Kimi Search? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for Kimi Search by type of site
If you are...Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite itAllow it. Kimi Search fetches pages for answers, so blocking it can remove you from them.
You license content and want to stop AI trainingBlocking it does not stop training, because Kimi Search is a retrieval crawler that feeds AI search answers. Block the operator's training crawler instead.
You run an online shopAllow it on product and category pages, which are the pages shoppers ask assistants about.
Your server is under load from botsRate-limit before blocking. It is rated safe in our database.

Check Kimi Search on your own site

  1. Open /robots.txt on your domain and search for Kimi-SearchBot. If it is not named, it follows User-agent: *.
  2. List the Disallow lines in the group Kimi Search follows and test your key URLs against them; the longest match wins, and Allow wins a tie.
  3. Look beyond the file. A firewall or bot manager can refuse Kimi Search even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
  4. Run our AI search visibility check to see how Kimi Search and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.

Common mistakes with Kimi Search

The errors we see most often with Kimi Search in the files and firewalls we test:

  1. Blocking Kimi Search while trying to stop AI training. Retrieval crawlers fetch pages so answers can cite them; blocking it can remove you from those answers without affecting training.
  2. Letting a firewall or bot-fight mode refuse Kimi Search while robots.txt allows it. The file looks right, but the crawler still gets a 403 or a challenge page.
  3. Forgetting that once a User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot group exists, Kimi Search ignores every rule under User-agent: *.

All three hide inside a file that looks correct, so check Kimi Search from outside after every change.

Spotting Kimi Search in your logs

robots.txt says what Kimi 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 "Kimi-SearchBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -c

And this shows which paths it requested most, which is the quickest way to see whether your Disallow lines are being respected:

grep -iE "Kimi-SearchBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

Check the requests are genuine

Anyone can send the Kimi Search user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:

  • Kimi-SearchBot: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where the operator documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable Kimi Search request with caution.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Kimi Search?
The official user-agent string for Kimi Search is: Kimi-SearchBot. Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from Kimi Search by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.
Is Kimi Search safe?
Yes, Kimi Search is a safe and legitimate crawler operated by Moonshot AI. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.
Will blocking Kimi Search hurt my SEO?
✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Kimi Search does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Kimi Search is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.
How do I block Kimi Search in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:
User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot
Disallow: /

This instructs Kimi Search not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).
Does Kimi Search respect robots.txt?
Kimi Search is operated by Moonshot AI and is expected to fetch and parse /robots.txt before crawling, following RFC 9309. For hard enforcement, combine robots.txt with server-level IP or user-agent blocking.
How do I verify if Kimi Search is crawling my site?
Search your web server access logs for the string Kimi-SearchBot (case-insensitive: grep -i "Kimi-SearchBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

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