Caution Official docs Data Scrapers

CCBot

Operated by Common Crawl

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
CCBot
Category:
Data Scrapers
Operator:
Common Crawl
Safety:
Caution
Blocking Impact:
Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:
2/10
Official docs:
commoncrawl.org

Confirmed by the operator

Common Crawl names CCBot 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 CCBot?

CCBot is Common Crawl's crawler. Common Crawl is a non-profit that publishes free web archives used by researchers and by most open AI training datasets.

Common Crawl data feeds many open AI training datasets, so blocking CCBot opts you out of more than one vendor. It identifies itself with the token CCBot. Common Crawl documents it at commoncrawl.org.

What happens if you block CCBot?

No effect on Google or Bing.
Consider blocking based on your content strategy.

How to block CCBot with robots.txt

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

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

CCBot is rated Caution. Common Crawl documents it, so it is not a spoofing risk in itself, but your content may be used for AI training. Decide on its purpose.

What does CCBot do?

From Common Crawl's own documentation.

  • CCBot is Common Crawl's crawler.
  • Content may be used to train AI models
  • No effect on Google or Bing.

CCBot in context

CCBot is a training crawler operated by Common Crawl. In plain terms, it collects pages to train AI models. Our database files it under data scrapers and ranks it Tier 6, the lowest priority: scrapers and tools that offer most sites little or nothing. 37 of the 39 data scrapers in our database share this tier.

Its safety rating is caution and its blocking impact is low. So the decision about CCBot rests on what you want from Common Crawl, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.

How site owners treat CCBot

In our own study of robots.txt files across the Tranco top 10,000 sites (fetched October 20, 2026, 5,583 valid files), 845 files (15.1%) name CCBot in a User-agent line, and 899 (16.1%) block it from the homepage. 680 of those blocks come from a group written for this crawler by name, and 219 come from a broad User-agent: * rule that catches it by accident. Larger sites are stricter: 22.4% of the top 1,000 block it, against 16.2% of the middle band and 15% of the tail.

Does it follow robots.txt?

CCBot's operator says it follows robots.txt, so a correctly written CCBot group is enough to control it.

Common Crawl crawlers and close alternatives

Common Crawl runs only this one crawler in our database, so a single User-agent: CCBot group controls everything Common Crawl fetches through it.

Other data scrapers that do the same job (collects pages to train AI models) include TikTokSpider from ByteDance, Brightbot from Bright Data, Cotoyogi from ROIS-DS, Webzio-Extended from Webz.io. Deciding about CCBot is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.

We first recorded CCBot on March 17, 2026. Common Crawl documents it on commoncrawl.org, and we recheck that page before each release.

Which rule CCBot actually follows

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

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

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

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

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

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

Test yourself: is User-agent: ccbot the same as User-agent: CCBot?

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

Should you allow CCBot? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for CCBot by type of site
If you are...Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite itYour call. CCBot 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: CCBot and Disallow: /.
You run an online shopConsider blocking it, especially on price and stock pages that competitors scrape.
Your server is under load from botsRate-limit before blocking. It is rated caution in our database.

Check CCBot on your own site

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

Common mistakes with CCBot

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

  1. Assuming that blocking CCBot 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 CCBot with a broad User-agent: * rule that also catches search engines. Name CCBot in its own group instead.
  3. Expecting a CCBot block to remove content already collected. robots.txt only affects future visits.

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

Spotting CCBot in your logs

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

Check the requests are genuine

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

  • CCBot: compare each address with the ranges at index.commoncrawl.org/ccbot.json. A request claiming to be CCBot from outside them is not genuine.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for CCBot?
The official user-agent string for CCBot is: CCBot. This is the exact string you must use in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. User-agent matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive, but the string must be spelled correctly. You can verify that a request genuinely comes from CCBot by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP - legitimate bots resolve back to their operator's domain.
Is CCBot safe?
CCBot is rated Caution. Common Crawl documents it, so it is not a spoofing risk in itself, but your content may be used for AI training. Decide on its purpose.
Will blocking CCBot hurt my SEO?
No effect on Google or Bing.
How do I block CCBot in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /

This instructs CCBot not to crawl any path on your site. The Disallow: / directive covers the entire domain including subfolders. To only block specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/). Note: robots.txt is publicly readable - any bot or human can inspect it at yourdomain.com/robots.txt.
Does CCBot respect robots.txt?
Yes. Common Crawl documents robots.txt support and publishes CCBot's IP ranges.
How do I verify if CCBot is crawling my site?
Search your web server access logs for the string CCBot (case-insensitive grep: grep -i "CCBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). You can also check Google Search Console → Coverage → Crawl Stats for Googlebot variants. For CCBot specifically, filter by user-agent in your log analysis tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).
What is the crawl frequency of CCBot?
Crawl frequency data for CCBot is not publicly documented. Monitor your logs to understand actual visit patterns.
Can I block CCBot from specific pages only?
Yes. Instead of a global Disallow: / you can restrict CCBot to specific paths:
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /staging/
Allow: /

This allows CCBot everywhere except the listed paths. Path matching in robots.txt uses prefix matching - Disallow: /private/ blocks /private/page.html but NOT /public/private/.
Is CCBot causing high server load?
If CCBot is generating excessive requests, you can:
1. Add Crawl-delay: 30 below the User-agent directive in robots.txt.
2. Rate-limit the user-agent via Nginx's limit_req_zone or Apache's mod_ratelimit.
3. Block it outright at Cloudflare WAF with rule: http.user_agent contains "CCBot".
4. Use fail2ban to auto-block IPs exceeding request thresholds.

Related Bots

WhatsApp us