DuckDuckGo
DuckAssistBot
Retrieves pages for DuckDuckGo’s AI-assisted answers.
AI searchWeb search
DuckDuckBot
Crawls websites for DuckDuckGo Search.
Operated by DuckDuckGo
See your agent traffic PurposeWeb search
HTTP identifierDuckDuckBot
IdentityVerify beyond the name
THE SIGNAL
What this visit tells you
Crawling is an input to search discovery, with clicks measured separately.
URL coverage
Crawl errors
Repeat crawls
Your next move
Review important page responses and DuckDuckGo referral traffic.
The technical details
MarkdownHow to identify it
Look for the DuckDuckBot identifier in a request’s User-Agent. This is a name match, not identity verification. Version strings may change.
How to check identity
Match the source IP with DuckDuckGo’s published duckduckbot.json list linked from its crawler help page.
Access and robots.txt
The operator documents robots.txt rules for this identifier.
Optional full-site opt-out. Merge with existing rules only if intended. robots.txt does not secure private content.
User-agent: DuckDuckBot
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 PulseSee DuckDuckBot in context
See their requests. Find the pages that matter.
See your agent trafficKEEP EXPLORING
