What is HenkBot?
Henkbot crawls the web on behalf of Valyu, an AI search infrastructure provider that indexes content for use in AI-powered retrieval pipelines. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Valyu |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | August 7, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
HenkBot crawls systematically at high volume. Expect recurring passes that cover large portions of your site rather than isolated pages, with sudden bursts when demand increases on its end.
HenkBot's User Agent
| User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; HenkBot/1.0; +https://valyu.ai/crawler) |
How To Block HenkBot With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block HenkBot from accessing your entire website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to block all AI data providers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: HenkBot # https://knownagents.com/agents/henkbot
Disallow: /
Global Statistics for HenkBot
As of August 7, 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
0% of top websites block HenkBot in their robots.txt files.
Overall AI Data Provider Traffic
0.3% of all web traffic came from AI data providers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block HenkBot?
It depends on how you feel about redistribution. A crawl from HenkBot can supply your content to multiple AI companies for training, search, or retrieval. Allowing it may expand your visibility across third-party AI products, while blocking it limits that reach without affecting traditional search rankings. Almost none of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for HenkBot.
Does HenkBot Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. HenkBot is expected to follow robots.txt directives, 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 HenkBot respects it.
Does HenkBot Access Private Content?
No special access. HenkBot can reach public pages, and some providers use proxy networks that can bypass rate limits or geographic restrictions. Protect sensitive content with authentication rather than relying on those softer barriers.
Why Is HenkBot Visiting My Website?
One of Valyu's customers may have requested data from your site, or your pages may be part of HenkBot's standing index. A single fetch can support multiple downstream AI applications.
How Can I Tell if HenkBot Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks HenkBot visits in real time alongside every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "HenkBot". Look for long sequences of requests spanning several unrelated sections of your site. Because HenkBot does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.