Safe Reported AI & LLM Bots

You.com AI

Operated by You

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
YouBot
Category:
AI & LLM Bots
Operator:
You
Safety:
Safe
Blocking Impact:
Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:
2/10
Official docs:
None published by You
Evidence:
Verified by AI Crawler Check: in 399 top-10k robots.txt files

Reported, not operator documented

You has not published a crawler page that names YouBot. It is listed here on our own evidence. Verified by AI Crawler Check: 399 of the 5,583 valid robots.txt files in the Tranco top 10,000 carry a rule for YouBot, 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 You.com crawler string. You.com publishes no crawler page.

What that means for you: the YouBot rule on this page is the best available spelling, but You has made no statement of purpose, crawl rate or robots.txt compliance. Treat a YouBot 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 You.com AI?

You.com AI is a dual-purpose AI crawler operated by You. It both indexes content for AI search answers and may retrieve pages on demand for user queries. Allowing it can improve your visibility inside You's AI answers.

You.com AI is a dual-purpose AI crawler operated by You. It both indexes content for AI search answers and may retrieve pages on demand for user queries. Allowing it can improve your visibility inside You's AI answers.
You.com AI uses the user-agent token YouBot. 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 You.com AI?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking You.com AI does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. You.com AI 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 You.com AI actually visits you? Read how do I monitor AI bot traffic to my website?

How to block You.com AI with robots.txt

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

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: YouBot Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: YouBot Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: YouBot Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block You.com AI if ($http_user_agent ~* "YouBot") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block You.com AI SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "YouBot" 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 You.com AI safe to allow?

You.com AI is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: You has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.
You publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern for You.com AI, so the user-agent string cannot be verified. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.

What does You.com AI do?

Understanding You.com AI'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

You.com AI in context

You.com AI is a training crawler operated by You. 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 You.com AI rests on what you want from You, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.

How site owners treat You.com AI

In our own scan of the Tranco top 10,000 (5,583 valid robots.txt files), 399 files (7.1%) name YouBot 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?

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

You crawlers and close alternatives

You runs only this one crawler in our database, so a single User-agent: YouBot group controls everything You 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, Andibot from Andi, cohere-ai from Cohere, DeepSeekBot from DeepSeek, DoubaoBot from ByteDance, GrokBot from xAI. Deciding about You.com AI is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.

We first recorded YouBot on March 17, 2026. We could not find a page where You names it, so treat the token as reported rather than documented.

Which rule You.com AI actually follows

You.com AI reads exactly one group in robots.txt, the most specific one that names YouBot, and never combines rules across groups. This short file shows the trap:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: YouBot
Disallow: /drafts/
  1. Find the group. You.com AI looks for a group naming YouBot. 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 You.com AI, 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 You.com AI if the file also has a User-agent: YouBot group?

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

Test yourself: will blocking You.com AI remove your pages from AI answers?

No. You.com AI collects training data. Blocking it changes what future models learn, not which pages AI answers cite today.

Test yourself: is User-agent: youbot the same as User-agent: YouBot?

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

Should you allow You.com AI? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for You.com AI by type of site
If you are...Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite itYour call. You.com AI 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 trainingBlock it by name with User-agent: YouBot and Disallow: /.
You run an online shopAllow it unless your logs show it is costly.
Your server is under load from botsRate-limit before blocking. It is rated safe in our database.

Check You.com AI on your own site

  1. Open /robots.txt on your domain and search for YouBot. If it is not named, it follows User-agent: *.
  2. List the Disallow lines in the group You.com AI 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 You.com AI even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
  4. Run our website crawlability test to see how You.com AI and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.

Common mistakes with You.com AI

The errors we see most often with You.com AI in the files and firewalls we test:

  1. Assuming that blocking You.com AI removes you from AI answers. It is a training crawler; AI answers are fed by retrieval and user-triggered crawlers with different tokens.
  2. Blocking You.com AI with a broad User-agent: * rule that also catches search engines. Name YouBot in its own group instead.
  3. Expecting a You.com AI block to remove content already collected. robots.txt only affects future visits.

All three hide inside a file that looks correct, so check You.com AI from outside after every change.

Spotting You.com AI in your logs

robots.txt says what You.com AI 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 "YouBot" /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 "YouBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

Check the requests are genuine

Anyone can send the You.com AI user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:

  • YouBot: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where the operator documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable You.com AI request with caution.

Frequently Asked Questions

What user-agent string does You.com AI use?
You.com AI is reported to identify itself with YouBot. Evidence that the spelling is in real use comes from our own robots.txt study: 399 of the 5,583 valid robots.txt files in the Tranco top 10,000 name it (fetched October 20, 2026), not from You, 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 You.com AI safe?
You.com AI is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: You has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.
Will blocking You.com AI hurt my SEO?
✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking You.com AI does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. You.com AI 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 You.com AI in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:
User-agent: YouBot
Disallow: /

This instructs You.com AI not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).
Does You.com AI respect robots.txt?
Not documented. You has published no statement that You.com AI reads robots.txt. A rule for YouBot will stop a client that chooses to honour it; for enforcement, add a firewall or CDN rule as well.
How do I verify if You.com AI is crawling my site?
Search your access logs for YouBot (for example grep -i "YouBot" /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 You sent it.

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