What is archive.org_bot?
archive.org_bot is the Internet Archive's web crawler for the Wayback Machine, systematically crawling and preserving publicly accessible web pages for historical record and research. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when archive.org_bot visits your website.
Category
| Example User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; archive.org_bot +http://archive.org/details/archive.org_bot) Zeno/810944a warc/v0.8.103 |
| Operated By | Internet Archive |
| Source | Official Website |
| Triggered By | Automated crawl |
| Used for AI Model Training | Not expected |
| Affects AI Chat & Search Visibility | Not directly |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
Why Is archive.org_bot Visiting My Website?
archive.org_bot is preserving your pages as part of a historical record. It returns periodically so the archive can capture how your content changes over time.
Should I Block archive.org_bot?
Rarely. archive.org_bot preserves snapshots of your pages through redesigns, migrations, and broken links. Blocking it prevents future captures but does not remove existing snapshots. To remove those, you must contact the archive directly. For context, 9% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for archive.org_bot.
How Do I Block archive.org_bot Using Robots.txt?
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block archive.org_bot from accessing your website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to block all archivers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: archive.org_bot # https://knownagents.com/agents/archive-org-bot
Disallow: /Insights for archive.org_bot
As of October 30, 2026, this data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
Robots.txt Compliance
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Frequently Asked Questions
What Traffic Patterns Should I Expect From archive.org_bot?
archive.org_bot periodically fetches complete pages rather than checking metadata alone. Visit frequency typically rises with your site's popularity and update cadence.
Does archive.org_bot Follow Robots.txt Rules?
archive.org_bot is expected to follow robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule is the appropriate first step if you want to block it. Automatic Robots.txt can add and maintain that rule, while Agent Analytics lets you verify whether archive.org_bot respects it.
Is archive.org_bot Used for AI Model Training?
Not ordinarily. archive.org_bot is not categorized as an AI training scraper or data provider, so AI model training is not its expected purpose.
Does Blocking archive.org_bot Affect AI Search or Citations?
Not directly. archive.org_bot's expected purpose is not to supply an AI search index or retrieve pages for AI-generated answers.
Does archive.org_bot Access Private Content?
No. archive.org_bot archives only what an anonymous visitor can see. Anything public at crawl time may remain available in its archive long after you remove it from your site.
How Can I Verify a Request From archive.org_bot?
Agent Analytics tracks archive.org_bot visits in real time. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "archive.org_bot". Look for a page and its embedded assets being fetched again after a long interval. Because archive.org_bot does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.
How Is archive.org_bot Different From Other Internet Archive Agents?
Internet Archive operates separate agents for different purposes, so each agent should be evaluated and controlled independently.
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