What is DuckDuckBot?
DuckDuckBot is DuckDuckGo's web crawler that indexes public web pages to improve the coverage and quality of DuckDuckGo search results. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when DuckDuckBot visits your website.
Category
| Example User Agent | DuckDuckBot/1.0; (+http://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.html) |
| Operated By | DuckDuckGo |
| Source | Official Website |
| Identity |
Verified
Verified Identification
Requests claiming to be this agent can be authenticated using its published verification method. |
| Triggered By | Automated crawl |
| Used for AI Model Training | Not expected |
| Affects AI Chat & Search Visibility | Possibly |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
Why Is DuckDuckBot Visiting My Website?
DuckDuckBot is adding new or changed pages to its search index. It may have discovered your site through links, a sitemap, or direct submission.
Should I Block DuckDuckBot?
No, unless you want to remove your pages from that search engine. DuckDuckBot supplies its index, so blocking it can eliminate your visibility and organic traffic there. Nearly every website should allow this category. For context, 4% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for DuckDuckBot.
How Do I Block DuckDuckBot Using Robots.txt?
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block DuckDuckBot from accessing your website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to block all search engine crawlers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: DuckDuckBot # https://knownagents.com/agents/duckduckbot
Disallow: /Insights for DuckDuckBot
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 DuckDuckBot?
DuckDuckBot follows an algorithmic schedule shaped by your site's popularity, update cadence, and domain authority. It generally spreads requests across recurring crawl passes, throttles itself to limit server load, and respects crawl rules more reliably than most other bots.
Does DuckDuckBot Follow Robots.txt Rules?
DuckDuckBot 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 DuckDuckBot respects it.
Is DuckDuckBot Used for AI Model Training?
Not ordinarily. DuckDuckBot is not categorized as an AI training scraper or data provider, so AI model training is not its expected purpose.
Does Blocking DuckDuckBot Affect AI Search or Citations?
Blocking DuckDuckBot can remove your pages from the search engine it supplies. That may also affect AI products that rely on the same index, but it does not directly control unrelated AI search services.
Does DuckDuckBot Access Private Content?
No special access. DuckDuckBot can reach only content available to anonymous visitors and does not sign in. Make sure sensitive content is not public by mistake.
How Can I Verify a Request From DuckDuckBot?
Agent Analytics tracks visits from DuckDuckBot and every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper, then authenticates each visit using DuckDuckBot's published verification method. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "DuckDuckBot". Look for recurring passes that revisit changed pages and discover new ones. A matching log entry alone is not proof because any bot can claim to be DuckDuckBot.
How Is DuckDuckBot Different From Other DuckDuckGo Agents?
DuckDuckGo operates separate agents for different purposes, so each agent should be evaluated and controlled independently.
- DuckAssistBot: DuckAssistBot is a web crawler that scans websites to collect content for DuckDuckGo's AI-assisted answers feature, which generates brief responses to search queries usin…
- DuckDuckGo-Favicons-Bot: DuckDuckGo-Favicons-Bot is a crawler operated by DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine. This bot collects favicon images from websites to display site icons in se…