What is special_archiver?
special_archiver is a web crawler operated by Internet Archive as part of their Archive-It service, which creates and preserves collections of web content. This bot visits websites to capture and archive web pages for long-term preservation and historical research purposes. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when special_archiver visits your website.
Category
| Example User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; special_archiver; Archive-It; +http://archive-it.org/files/site-owners-special.html) |
| Operated By | Internet Archive |
| Source | Official Website |
| Triggered By | Automated crawl |
| Used for AI Model Training | Not expected |
| Affects AI Chat & Search Visibility | Not directly |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
Why Is special_archiver Visiting My Website?
special_archiver is preserving your pages as part of a historical record. It returns periodically so the archive can capture how your content changes over time.
Should I Block special_archiver?
Rarely. special_archiver 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 special_archiver.
How Do I Block special_archiver Using Robots.txt?
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block special_archiver 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: special_archiver # https://knownagents.com/agents/special-archiver
Disallow: /Insights for special_archiver
As of October 29, 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 special_archiver?
special_archiver periodically fetches complete pages rather than checking metadata alone. Visit frequency typically rises with your site's popularity and update cadence.
Does special_archiver Follow Robots.txt Rules?
special_archiver 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 special_archiver respects it.
Is special_archiver Used for AI Model Training?
Not ordinarily. special_archiver is not categorized as an AI training scraper or data provider, so AI model training is not its expected purpose.
Does Blocking special_archiver Affect AI Search or Citations?
Not directly. special_archiver's expected purpose is not to supply an AI search index or retrieve pages for AI-generated answers.
Does special_archiver Access Private Content?
No. special_archiver 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 Verify a Request From special_archiver?
Agent Analytics tracks special_archiver visits in real time. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "special_archiver". Look for a page and its embedded assets being fetched again after a long interval. Because special_archiver does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.
How Is special_archiver Different From Other Internet Archive Agents?
Internet Archive operates separate agents for different purposes, so each agent should be evaluated and controlled independently.
- Archive-It: Archive-It is a web archiving crawler operated by Internet Archive that preserves copies of web pages for long-term digital preservation and historical record-keeping. It…
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- heritrix: heritrix is an archiver operated by Internet Archive.
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- ia_archiver-web.archive.org: ia_archiver-web.archive.org is an archiver operated by Internet Archive.