What is Synthetic Bot?
Synthetic Bot is a developer helper operated by Datadog. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when Synthetic Bot visits your website.
Category
| Operated By | Datadog |
| Triggered By | Scheduled or manual configuration |
| Used for AI Model Training | Not expected |
| Affects AI Chat & Search Visibility | Not directly |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | No |
Why Is Synthetic Bot Visiting My Website?
Someone, most likely on your own team, configured Synthetic Bot to check your site. Uptime monitors, performance testers, and audit tools visit only the sites or endpoints they are told to watch.
Should I Block Synthetic Bot?
Only if no one on your team relies on it. Synthetic Bot may support uptime monitoring, performance tests, or audits. Blocking it without checking first can silently disrupt those workflows. For context, 7% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for Synthetic Bot.
Insights for Synthetic Bot
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
Synthetic Bot Traffic
Frequently Asked Questions
What Traffic Patterns Should I Expect From Synthetic Bot?
Synthetic Bot's traffic often follows fixed intervals like a cron job. Activity may consist of short recurring checks or occasional intensive bursts, but it usually remains limited to a specific set of pages or endpoints.
Does Synthetic Bot Follow Robots.txt Rules?
No. Synthetic Bot 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.
Is Synthetic Bot Used for AI Model Training?
Not ordinarily. Synthetic Bot is not categorized as an AI training scraper or data provider, so AI model training is not its expected purpose.
Does Blocking Synthetic Bot Affect AI Search or Citations?
Not directly. Synthetic Bot's expected purpose is not to supply an AI search index or retrieve pages for AI-generated answers.
Does Synthetic Bot Access Private Content?
Only when configured with access. A team may grant Synthetic Bot credentials to monitor staging sites or private health endpoints. Without those credentials, it sees only public pages.
How Can I Verify a Request From Synthetic Bot?
Agent Analytics tracks Synthetic Bot visits in real time. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "Synthetic Bot". Look for repeated checks of the same pages or endpoints at regular intervals. Because Synthetic Bot does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.
How Is Synthetic Bot Different From Other Datadog Agents?
Datadog operates separate agents for different purposes, so each agent should be evaluated and controlled independently.
- Datadog: Datadog Synthetics performs automated website and API monitoring through simulated user requests and browser rendering to test application performance and availability.
- Datadog Synthetic: Datadog Synthetic is a monitoring bot that performs synthetic tests and uptime checks on websites and APIs to measure performance, availability, and user experience from …