Caution Official docs SEO Tools

DotBot

Q: What is the official user-agent string for DotBot?

The official user-agent string for DotBot is: DotBot . 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 DotBot by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP - legitimate bots resolve back to their operator's domain.

Q: Is DotBot safe?

DotBot is rated Caution. Moz documents it, so it is not a spoofing risk in itself, but it fetches content for uses you may not want to support. Decide on its purpose.

Q: How do I block DotBot in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: User-agent: DotBot Disallow: / This instructs DotBot 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 .

Q: How do I verify if DotBot is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string DotBot (case-insensitive grep: grep -i "DotBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log ). You can also check Google Search Console → Coverage → Crawl Stats for Googlebot variants. For DotBot specifically, filter by user-agent in your log analysis tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

Operated by Moz

Scout's quick take

DotBot gathers data for an SEO platform. Blocking it does not affect your rankings; it only hides your site from that tool's reports.

# Block only if you really mean to
User-agent: DotBot
Disallow: /

Test my AI crawlability Build a full robots.txt

Quick Facts

User-Agent:: DotBot
Category:: SEO Tools
Operator:: Moz
Safety:: Caution
Blocking Impact:: Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:: 2/10
Official docs:: moz.com

Confirmed by the operator

Moz names DotBot 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 DotBot?

DotBot is Moz's crawler. Moz says it gathers web data for the Moz Link Index used in Link Explorer, Moz Pro and the Moz Links API.

It identifies itself with the token DotBot. Moz documents it at moz.com.

What happens if you block DotBot?

No effect on Google or Bing. Your link data stops being refreshed in Moz tools. Moz's site-audit crawler, Rogerbot, is a separate token.

Consider blocking based on your content strategy.

How to block DotBot with robots.txt

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

Block completely (robots.txt)

User-agent: DotBot
Disallow: /

Allow all (robots.txt)

User-agent: DotBot
Allow: /

Block private only (robots.txt)

User-agent: DotBot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /

Nginx server block

# Nginx: Hard-block DotBot
if ($http_user_agent ~* "DotBot") {
    return 403 "Bot blocked";
}

Apache .htaccess

# Apache: Hard-block DotBot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "DotBot" bad_bot
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot

Meta robots tag

X-Robots-Tag header

X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is DotBot safe to allow?

DotBot is rated Caution. Moz documents it, so it is not a spoofing risk in itself, but it fetches content for uses you may not want to support. Decide on its purpose.

What does DotBot do?

From Moz's own documentation.

DotBot is Moz's crawler.
No effect on Google or Bing. Your link data stops being refreshed in Moz tools. Moz's site-audit crawler, Rogerbot, is a separate token.

DotBot in context

DotBot is a utility crawler operated by Moz. In plain terms, it checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service. Our database files it under SEO tools and ranks it Tier 4, specialist crawlers that matter to particular sites or markets. 19 of the 19 SEO tools in our database share this tier.

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

How site owners treat DotBot

In our own study of robots.txt files across the Tranco top 10,000 sites (fetched October 20, 2026, 5,583 valid files), 224 files (4%) name DotBot in a User-agent line, and 419 (7.5%) block it from the homepage. 184 of those blocks come from a group written for this crawler by name, and 235 come from a broad User-agent: * rule that catches it by accident. Larger sites are stricter: 10.6% of the top 1,000 block it, against 7.3% of the middle band and 7.1% of the tail.

Does it follow robots.txt?

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

Moz crawlers and close alternatives

DotBot is one of 2 Moz crawlers in our database. A User-agent: DotBot group controls DotBot only; the other Moz tokens below need their own lines.

DotBot: this crawler (Tier 4)
Rogerbot: Moz Campaign Crawler, checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service (Tier 4)

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

Other SEO tools that do the same job (checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service) include AhrefsBot from Ahrefs, AhrefsSiteAudit from Ahrefs, AwarioBot from Awario, AwarioRssBot from Awario, AwarioSmartBot from Awario, Chrome-Lighthouse from Google. Deciding about DotBot is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.

We first recorded DotBot on March 17, 2026. Moz documents it on moz.com, and we recheck that page before each release.

Which rule DotBot actually follows

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

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: DotBot
Disallow: /drafts/

Find the group. DotBot looks for a group naming DotBot. One exists, so it ignores User-agent: * completely.
Apply only that group. It is refused /drafts/ and nothing else.
The surprise. /private/ is open to DotBot, 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 DotBot if the file also has a User-agent: DotBot group?

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

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

Often, yes. DotBot is a utility crawler, so pages it cannot fetch can drop out of the answers or results it supports.

Test yourself: is User-agent: dotbot the same as User-agent: DotBot?

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

Should you allow DotBot? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for DotBot by type of site
If you are...	Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite it	Low stakes either way. It does not decide whether AI answers cite you.
You license content and want to stop AI training	Blocking it does not stop training, because DotBot is a utility crawler. Block the operator's training crawler instead.
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 caution in our database.

Check DotBot on your own site

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

Common mistakes with DotBot

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

Treating DotBot as an AI or search crawler. Blocking it has little effect on visibility; decide based on load and what it does with your data.
Relying on robots.txt alone when DotBot is rated caution or aggressive. Back the rule with a server-side block.
Blocking DotBot by IP alone. Ranges change; match the token and verify with logs.

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

Spotting DotBot in your logs

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

Check the requests are genuine

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

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

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for DotBot?

The official user-agent string for DotBot is: DotBot. 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 DotBot by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP - legitimate bots resolve back to their operator's domain.

Is DotBot safe?

DotBot is rated Caution. Moz documents it, so it is not a spoofing risk in itself, but it fetches content for uses you may not want to support. Decide on its purpose.

Will blocking DotBot hurt my SEO?

No effect on Google or Bing. Your link data stops being refreshed in Moz tools. Moz's site-audit crawler, Rogerbot, is a separate token.

How do I block DotBot in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:

User-agent: DotBot
Disallow: /

This instructs DotBot 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 DotBot respect robots.txt?

Yes. Moz: "we always respect the standard Robots Exclusion Protocol (aka robots.txt)".

How do I verify if DotBot is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string DotBot (case-insensitive grep: grep -i "DotBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). You can also check Google Search Console → Coverage → Crawl Stats for Googlebot variants. For DotBot specifically, filter by user-agent in your log analysis tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

What is the crawl frequency of DotBot?

Crawl frequency data for DotBot is not publicly documented. Monitor your logs to understand actual visit patterns.

Can I block DotBot from specific pages only?

Yes. Instead of a global Disallow: / you can restrict DotBot to specific paths:

User-agent: DotBot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /staging/
Allow: /

This allows DotBot everywhere except the listed paths. Path matching in robots.txt uses prefix matching - Disallow: /private/ blocks /private/page.html but NOT /public/private/.

Why would I want to block DotBot?

There are two main reasons to block DotBot:
1. Competitive intelligence: Moz users (your competitors) can analyse your backlink profile, keyword rankings, and site structure. Blocking prevents this.
2. Crawl budget: If your site is large, SEO tool crawlers consume crawl bandwidth without contributing to search rankings. Blocking frees up server resources for search engine bots.
The trade-off: you also become invisible in Moz's backlink database, meaning links pointing TO your site from other domains won't appear in competitor reports either.