bitlybot
What is bitlybot?
About
bitlybot is a fetcher operated by Bitly. It's not currently known to be artificially intelligent or AI-related. If you think that's incorrect or can provide more detail about its purpose, please contact us. You can see how often bitlybot visits your website by setting up Dark Visitors agent analytics.
Detail
| Operator | Bitly |
Type
Expected Behavior
Fetchers visit websites on-demand. They're normally dispatched by apps to present metadata about a link (e.g. the title and thumbnail image) to a user.
Agent Analytics
Visits to Your Website
Half of your traffic probably comes from artificial agents, and there are more of them every day. Track their activity with agent analytics.
Top Websites
Robots.txt
Should I Block bitlybot?
Probably not. If you block a fetcher, it won't be able to fetch the metadata it needs to display a link preview. Fewer people will click on the link to your website without this.
How Do I Block bitlybot?
You can block bitlybot or limit its access by setting user agent token rules in your website's robots.txt. Set up Dark Visitors agent analytics to check whether it's actually following them.
| User Agent Token | Description |
|---|---|
bitlybot |
Should match instances of bitlybot |
# robots.txt
# This should block bitlybot
User-agent: bitlybot
Disallow: /
Recommended Solution
Instead of doing this manually, use automatic robots.txt to keep your rules updated with the latest AI scrapers, crawlers, and assistants automatically.
Global Insights
Fetchers
The percentage of all internet traffic coming from fetchers
See All Global Insights →