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. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when HenkBot visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Valyu |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | September 4, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
HenkBot supports several kinds of automated activity, so its traffic pattern depends on the task. It may perform broad crawls to collect content or build an index, make targeted requests for specific pages, or shift between these behaviors as demand changes.
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 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: /
Insights for HenkBot
As of September 4, 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
6% of top websites block HenkBot in their robots.txts.
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 which uses you want to support. HenkBot may supply your content to enterprises, including AI companies, or use it in consumer-facing products. Those uses can include AI training, search, and retrieval. Allowing it may expand your visibility across those products and services, while blocking it limits that reach without affecting traditional search rankings. For context, 6% 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 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 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.
How Can I Tell if HenkBot Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks HenkBot visits in real time. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "HenkBot". Traffic may range from long crawl sequences across your site to isolated requests for specific pages, depending on whether it is collecting, indexing, or fetching content on demand. Because HenkBot does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.
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 applications.