APOSTL
SEO analysis

AhrefsBot

Collects link and web data for Ahrefs and the Yep search engine.

Operated by Ahrefs
See your agent traffic
PurposeSEO analysis
HTTP identifierAhrefsBot
IdentityVerify beyond the name

THE SIGNAL

What this visit tells you

A broad web crawl is not necessarily an audit commissioned by your team. Separate it from AhrefsSiteAudit traffic.

Linked URL failures
Crawl frequency
Origin load

Your next move

Compare crawl frequency and backlink destinations. Handle useful retired pages intentionally while keeping probes outside product error reports.

The technical details

Markdown
How to identify it

Look for the AhrefsBot identifier in a request’s User-Agent. This is a name match, not identity verification. Version strings may change.

How to check identity

Check Ahrefs’ published IP list and forward-confirmed reverse DNS guidance.

Access and robots.txt

Supports robots.txt and Crawl-delay.

Optional full-site opt-out. Merge with existing rules only if intended. robots.txt does not secure private content.

User-agent: AhrefsBot
Disallow: /
Seeing 403 or 404 responses?

403 means access was denied; 404 means the resource was not found. Compare the public path, request time, edge security event and origin response to find the cause.

Separate intended restrictions and secret-file probes from pages that should work. A User-Agent name alone does not justify allowing a request.

SourcesReviewed 2026-09-14

Identity and purpose are based on these sources. Analytics interpretation and suggested checks are Apostl guidance.

APOSTL Pulse

See AhrefsBot in context

See their requests. Find the pages that matter.

See your agent traffic

KEEP EXPLORING

Different bots, different intent

Semrush

SemrushBot

Collects web and link data for Semrush analysis tools.

SEO analysis