What Is AhrefsBot? User-Agent, IPs, and How to Block or Allow It

You’re checking server logs, a firewall event, or your CDN dashboard and you spot something like “AhrefsBot.” Your first thought is usually simple: is this a normal crawler, or is someone poking around where they shouldn’t?

AhrefsBot is a legitimate web crawler run by Ahrefs, similar in concept to Googlebot. It visits public pages, follows links, and builds a web index that feeds Ahrefs’ SEO tools and their search engine, Yep.com. That said, the name “AhrefsBot” can be spoofed, so you shouldn’t trust a user-agent string alone.

In this guide, you’ll learn what AhrefsBot does, how to confirm the traffic is real (and not a fake bot wearing a familiar mask), what the official user-agent strings look like, how IP and reverse DNS checks fit in, and safe ways to block, allow, or slow it down without accidentally hurting your site’s crawlability.

What AhrefsBot is, and why it crawls your site

AhrefsBot is Ahrefs’ main public web crawler. Its job is to discover pages and links across the open web, then store that data so Ahrefs can show backlink profiles, referring domains, anchor text, broken link opportunities, and more.

That activity can feel suspicious if you’re only seeing the bot in logs. But crawling isn’t “hacking.” A crawler requests URLs your server already serves to regular visitors, then reads responses the same way a browser would (just without the human).

A few practical reasons you’ll see AhrefsBot on your site:

• Link discovery: It finds new inbound and outbound links, which later appear in backlink indexes.
• Content discovery: It revisits pages to keep the index fresh, especially if your site updates often.
• Search engine coverage: Ahrefs also uses crawl data for Yep.com.
• Rules based crawling: AhrefsBot is designed to follow standard crawl rules like robots.txt, and it supports crawl controls like Crawl-delay.

If you publish public content and want accurate third-party SEO data about your domain, you usually want AhrefsBot to reach the pages you care about. If your server is small or you’re under load, you might want to slow it down rather than block it outright.

If you’re working on your content and rankings, it also helps to pair crawl management with on-page improvements, for example using RightBlogger SEO Reports to tighten headings, keyword coverage, and structure while you keep crawl access clean.

AhrefsBot vs AhrefsSiteAudit, two bots with different jobs

It’s easy to lump all “Ahrefs bots” together, but there are two common ones you’ll see:

• AhrefsBot: The global crawler that builds Ahrefs’ public web index (links and pages). This is the one that shows up even if you don’t use Ahrefs.
• AhrefsSiteAudit: A crawler used for Ahrefs Site Audit projects. This one typically appears when a site owner (or someone with access) sets up an audit for a domain inside Ahrefs.

Why the difference matters: you might be happy to let AhrefsBot crawl your public blog posts, but you may want tighter control over AhrefsSiteAudit if audits could hit heavy pages, staging URLs, or parameter-based URL traps. On the flip side, if you actively use Ahrefs tools for your own site, blocking AhrefsSiteAudit can lead to incomplete audit results.

What the official user-agent strings look like

When you’re scanning server logs, these are common official examples you can match:

• AhrefsBot: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AhrefsBot/7.0; +http://ahrefs.com/robot/)
• AhrefsSiteAudit: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AhrefsSiteAudit/2; +http://ahrefs.com/robot/)

You may also see additional variants for Site Audit (desktop and mobile style crawls), depending on how the audit is configured.

Important: a user-agent string is easy to fake. Anyone can send a request that says “AhrefsBot.” Treat the user-agent as a clue, not proof.

How to confirm it is the real AhrefsBot (not a spoofed crawler)

If you’re going to allowlist AhrefsBot, don’t do it based on the user-agent alone. Your safest approach is to verify using multiple signals: user-agent, IP checks, and reverse DNS.

Here’s a quick way to think about it:

Signal you check	What it tells you	What it doesn’t prove
User-agent contains “AhrefsBot”	The request claims to be AhrefsBot	It could be spoofed
IP matches Ahrefs’ published IP list	The traffic likely comes from Ahrefs infrastructure	Lists can change, so you must keep it updated
Reverse DNS ends in ahrefs.com or ahrefs.net	Strong confirmation you’re seeing real Ahrefs traffic	DNS checks should be paired with forward confirmation when possible

You can do these checks on most setups: Apache, Nginx, managed WordPress hosts, and CDNs like Cloudflare. Cloudflare also recognizes many major crawlers, and Ahrefs bots are included in Cloudflare’s verified bot ecosystem, which helps reduce guesswork when you’re filtering bot traffic in WAF logs.

Check your server logs first, then look for patterns that make sense

Start with your raw access logs or request analytics (CDN logs work too). You’re looking for normal crawler behavior:

• Request rate that ramps up and down instead of constant spikes.
• Mostly public URLs, like blog posts, category pages, and sitemaps.
• Respect for obvious blocks, for example not hammering pages that return 403/404.
• Reasonable status codes, often 200s and 304s, with some 404s if your internal links aren’t perfect.

Red flags that often point to spoofed bots:

• Huge bursts that look like a stress test (hundreds of requests per second).
• Probing sensitive paths, like /wp-admin/, /xmlrpc.php, .env, or random PHP files that don’t exist.
• Ignoring your patterns, for example repeatedly requesting the same broken URL, or crawling a blocked path nonstop.
• Odd geographic IP locations that don’t line up with the real crawler’s infrastructure footprint.

If you do see behavior that looks like scraping or probing, treat it like suspicious traffic first, then verify whether it’s truly Ahrefs before you block by user-agent.

Verify IP addresses using Ahrefs’ published endpoints and reverse DNS

Once you’ve identified a suspicious (or simply heavy) request, take the IP address and verify it.

A safe verification flow looks like this:

1. Copy the requesting IP from your logs (not from a third-party report).
2. Run a reverse DNS lookup on that IP.
3. Confirm the reverse hostname ends with ahrefs.com or ahrefs.net.
4. Cross-check the IP against the official IP list referenced on http://ahrefs.com/robot/.

This matters because IP ranges can change over time. Don’t rely on a random list from an old blog post or a firewall snippet you found in a forum. Always use the official source as your reference point, then build your allowlist or blocklist around what you confirm today.

Advanced users can set up a cron job to pull IP addresses from the Ahrefs IP range list. This keeps the list up to date so the IPs remain accurate.

If you’re doing content and link work, it can be helpful to compare what third-party crawlers see versus what your own tools show. For example, you can sanity-check your backlink visibility using RightBlogger’s Free Backlink Checker Tool while you decide whether to allow or restrict crawlers.

How to allow, block, or throttle AhrefsBot without breaking your SEO

Managing AhrefsBot is really about choosing the lightest control that solves your problem.

A simple decision framework:

• Allow it if your site is public and you want accurate backlink and content discovery data (and possible visibility in Yep.com).
• Throttle it if crawling is real but your server resources are tight.
• Block it if the content is private, the site is staging, you’re running a paid community, or you’re under active strain.

Start with partial controls before full blocks. It’s like turning down a faucet before you shut off the water main.

Control crawling with robots.txt (allow, block certain folders, or block everything)

Robots.txt is your first line of control because it’s simple and it’s reversible. You can:

• Block everything for AhrefsBot
• Block only sensitive areas
• Allow everything (by doing nothing special, assuming you’re not blocking it already)

Examples you can adapt:

Block AhrefsBot site-wide

• User-agent: AhrefsBot
• Disallow: /

Block only sensitive paths

• User-agent: AhrefsBot
• Disallow: /private/
• Disallow: /wp-admin/

A few practical notes:

• Robots.txt changes aren’t instant, they apply on the next crawl.
• A messy robots.txt can cause rules to be ignored. Keep it clean, and avoid contradictory rules you don’t understand.
• Blocking /wp-admin/ is common, but remember WordPress also needs admin-ajax.php for some public features. Don’t block files blindly if your front-end depends on them.

Slow it down with Crawl-delay (and when that might not fully help)

If your goal is “less load, same discovery,” a crawl-delay can help.

A common approach is:

• User-agent: AhrefsBot
• Crawl-delay: 10

That asks the bot to space requests out (in seconds). It can reduce the CPU spikes that show up when a crawler hits uncached pages.

One catch: crawl-delay usually applies best to HTML page fetches. Some crawls still involve parallel requests for assets or rendering-related resources, so you may still see bursts around CSS, JS, or images. If you’re seeing that kind of pattern, combine crawl-delay with caching and rate limiting at the edge.

If you’re building content at scale and want it to be easy for crawlers to understand and revisit, tightening on-page signals helps too. A practical companion is Free AI SEO Tools by RightBlogger, especially when you’re updating older posts that crawlers revisit often.

Use firewall, CDN, or host controls to allow or block by IP, safely

Likely the most complete option is using a firewall like Cloudflare to block Ahrefsbot.

Firewall and CDN controls are most useful when:

• You’re seeing fake bots spoofing the AhrefsBot user-agent.
• You want to allow only verified Ahrefs IPs and block everything else that claims to be Ahrefs.
• You need stronger enforcement than robots.txt (since robots is a request, not a lock).

Common options:

• Cloudflare / WAF rules: Create rules based on verified bot status, ASN, or IP ranges. If you allowlist by IP, keep it updated from Ahrefs’ official list.
• Server firewall rules: Useful for dedicated servers, but riskier if you don’t maintain them. A stale allowlist causes false blocks.
• Managed host bot controls: Some hosts offer toggles for “known bots” or custom rules at the edge.

A good safety habit: if you decide to allowlist, only allowlist after verification (reverse DNS plus IP list). Otherwise, you can accidentally give a malicious scraper a free pass just because it set its user-agent to “AhrefsBot.”

Troubleshooting and best practices (so your site stays fast and secure)

Once you change crawler access, you want to confirm two things: your site still performs well, and you didn’t block something you actually needed.

If your server is struggling, fix the bottleneck before you blame the bot

Crawler traffic often exposes weak spots you already had:

• No full-page caching, so every request hits PHP and the database.
• Expensive endpoints that should be protected or cached.
• Slow TTFB on category pages or search pages.
• Thin error handling that returns 500s during spikes.

A few fixes that pay off fast:

• Enable page caching (plugin, host cache, or edge cache).
• Put a CDN in front of heavy assets and set sane cache headers.
• Return correct status codes (don’t serve 200s for missing pages).
• Watch 4xx/5xx spikes. Many crawlers slow down when they see lots of errors, so cleaning up error responses can reduce crawl pressure naturally.
• Block URL traps (calendar pages, endless filtered parameters, internal search results).

If you’re also trying to outrank competitors, this is a good moment to look at content gaps and link profiles, since crawlers will keep revisiting what’s important. You can pair performance fixes with Free AI Competitor Analysis Tools to identify what to improve on the pages you actually want crawled.

When to allow AhrefsBot and when blocking is the right call

Use real-world scenarios to decide:

You should usually allow AhrefsBot if:

• You run a public blog, niche site, or marketing site.
• You want accurate backlink and content discovery data in third-party SEO platforms.
• You care about visibility in Yep.com.
• You use Ahrefs tools and want complete reports for your own domain.

You should throttle AhrefsBot if:

• You’re on a small VPS or shared hosting.
• Crawling triggers CPU spikes or database bottlenecks.
• You can’t upgrade hosting right now, but you can tune caching and crawl-delay.

You should block AhrefsBot if:

• The site is staging or development.
• Content is paid, private, or community-only.
• You’re dealing with an incident and need to reduce all non-human traffic until things stabilize.

If you do block it, do it intentionally, document it, and set a reminder to review later. Many “temporary” blocks become permanent by accident.

Verify whether AhrefsBot (or AhrefsSiteAudit) can crawl your site (fast check)

If you want a quick yes or no on whether Ahrefs can reach your site, use Ahrefs’ Website status tool.

1. Open Ahrefs’ bot Website status page (the one shown in the screenshot).
2. Select AhrefsBot (for the public crawler) or AhrefsSiteAudit (for audit crawls).
3. Enter your domain (use the exact version you care about, like https://example.com).
4. Click Check status.
5. Read the result:
   • “This website can be crawled fully” means Ahrefs sees your robots.txt as allowing crawling.
   • If it shows blocked paths or errors, click Recrawl all robots.txt after you make changes to confirm the fix.

This is a clean troubleshooting step because it tells you what Ahrefs’ systems see, not just what you think you configured in robots.txt or your firewall.

Conclusion

When you see AhrefsBot in your logs, don’t treat it as guilty or innocent based on the name alone. Your best plan is simple: confirm the user-agent, verify the IP with reverse DNS and the official IP list referenced on http://ahrefs.com/robot/, then choose the lightest control that meets your goal (robots.txt, crawl-delay, or firewall rules). After you make changes, re-check logs to confirm the result matches what you wanted.

Spoofed bots are real, so verification is the step that keeps you safe, especially before you allowlist anything.