What is bnf.fr_bot?
bnf.fr_bot is the official web crawler of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF), systematically collecting and archiving digital content from French websites to preserve France's national documentary heritage. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when bnf.fr_bot visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Bibliothèque nationale de France |
| Source | Official Website |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | September 15, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
bnf.fr_bot periodically fetches complete pages rather than checking metadata alone. Visit frequency typically rises with your site's popularity and update cadence.
bnf.fr_bot's User Agent
| User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bnf.fr_bot; +https://www.bnf.fr/fr/capture-de-votre-site-web-par-le-robot-de-la-bnf) |
How To Block bnf.fr_bot With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block bnf.fr_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: bnf.fr_bot # https://knownagents.com/agents/bnf-fr-bot
Disallow: /Insights for bnf.fr_bot
As of September 15, 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 Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
7% of top websites block bnf.fr_bot in their robots.txts.
Overall Archiver Traffic
0.1% of all web traffic came from archivers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block bnf.fr_bot?
Rarely. bnf.fr_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, 7% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for bnf.fr_bot.
Does bnf.fr_bot Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. bnf.fr_bot is expected to follow robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule is the appropriate first step. Automatic Robots.txt can add and maintain that rule, while Agent Analytics lets you verify whether bnf.fr_bot respects it.
Does bnf.fr_bot Access Private Content?
No. bnf.fr_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 Tell if bnf.fr_bot Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks bnf.fr_bot visits in real time. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "bnf.fr_bot". Look for a page and its embedded assets being fetched again after a long interval. Because bnf.fr_bot does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.
Why Is bnf.fr_bot Visiting My Website?
bnf.fr_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.