What Is ia_archiver?

ia_archiver is an archiver operated by Internet Archive. If you think this is incorrect or can provide additional detail about its purpose, please let us know. You can see how often ia_archiver visits your website by setting up Dark Visitors Agent Analytics.

Agent Type

Expected Behavior

Archivers crawl websites to create historical snapshots for preservation purposes. They typically visit on a regular cadence to build a chronological record of how content changes over time. Crawl frequency varies based on site popularity and content update patterns. Unlike search crawlers, archivers aim to capture and store complete page states rather than extract information for indexing.

Detail

User Agent String

Access other known user agent strings and recent IP addresses using the API.

Robots.txt

In this example, all pages are blocked. You can customize which pages are off-limits by swapping out / for a different disallowed path.

User-agent: ia_archiver # https://darkvisitors.com/agents/ia-archiver
Disallow: /

Frequently Asked Questions About ia_archiver

Should I Block ia_archiver?

It depends on your goals. Digital archiving preserves cultural and historical records for future generations. Most website owners appreciate being included in archives like the Wayback Machine. However, if you handle sensitive content or prefer not to have historical snapshots, you can block archivers.

How Do I Block ia_archiver?

If you want to, you can block or limit ia_archiver's access by configuring user agent token rules in your robots.txt file. The best way to do this is using Automatic Robots.txt, which blocks all agents of this type and updates continuously as new agents are released. While the vast majority of agents operated by reputable companies honor these robots.txt directives, bad actors may choose to ignore them entirely. In that case, you'll need to implement alternative blocking methods such as firewall rules or server-level restrictions. You can verify whether ia_archiver is respecting your rules by setting up Agent Analytics to monitor its visits to your website.

Will Blocking ia_archiver Hurt My SEO?

Blocking archivers has no direct SEO impact since they don't influence search engine rankings. However, archived content can provide historical context and backlink opportunities. Some SEO tools also reference archived data for analysis, so blocking might limit certain SEO insights.

Does ia_archiver Access Private Content?

Archivers typically focus on publicly accessible content to create historical records. They generally don't attempt to access password-protected or private content, as their goal is to preserve public web history. However, they may archive content that's publicly accessible but not intended for long-term preservation, such as temporary pages or draft content.

How Can I Tell if ia_archiver Is Visiting My Website?

Setting up Agent Analytics will give you realtime visibility into ia_archiver visiting your website, along with hundreds of other AI agents, crawlers, and scrapers. This will also let you measure human traffic to your website coming from AI search and chat LLM platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

Why Is ia_archiver Visiting My Website?

ia_archiver discovered your site through web discovery methods or your site was submitted to their archiving service. Your content was selected for preservation either as part of broad web archiving efforts or because it was specifically nominated for historical preservation.

How Can I Authenticate Visits From ia_archiver?

Agent Analytics authenticates agent visits from many agents, letting you know whether each one was actually from that agent, or spoofed by a bad actor. This helps you identify suspicious traffic patterns and make informed decisions about blocking or allowing specific user agents.