What is Mastodon?
Mastodon is a fetcher operated by Mastodon. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when Mastodon visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Mastodon |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | No |
| Insights Last Updated | September 15, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
Mastodon usually makes a single request within seconds of a URL being shared, without crawling further. Traffic rises and falls with sharing activity, so a widely circulated link can produce a sharp burst of fetches.
Mastodon's User Agent
| User Agent | http.rb/5.1.1 (Mastodon/4.2.10; +https://mastodon.well.com/) Bot |
How To Block Mastodon With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to request that Mastodon not access your website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to request the same of all fetchers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: Mastodon # https://knownagents.com/agents/mastodon
Disallow: /Insights for Mastodon
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 Mastodon in their robots.txts.
Overall Fetcher Traffic
1.8% of all web traffic came from fetchers.
Top Visited Website Categories
The types of websites most frequently visited by Mastodon.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block Mastodon?
Usually not. Blocking Mastodon may leave shared links without a title or image, making them less inviting to click. If it begins fetching at unexpected volume, try rate limiting before blocking it outright. For context, 7% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for Mastodon.
Does Mastodon Follow Robots.txt Rules?
No. Mastodon is not expected to follow robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule only communicates your preference. Enforce the block with firewall or server rules, then use Agent Analytics to verify that its requests stop.
Does Mastodon Access Private Content?
No. Mastodon has no credentials and should access only the public URL and assets needed for a preview. It does not continue through the rest of your site.
How Can I Tell if Mastodon Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks Mastodon visits in real time. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "Mastodon". Look for a page and its preview assets being requested without follow-up navigation. Because Mastodon does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.
Why Is Mastodon Visiting My Website?
Someone shared a link to your page. Mastodon fetched it to build a preview card, and each new share may trigger another request. A spike often means your content is circulating more widely.