Twitterbot
What is Twitterbot?
About
Twitterbot is a fetcher operated by X. 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 set up agent analytics to see when Twitterbot visits your website.
Detail
| Operator | X |
| Documentation | https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-for-websites/cards/guides/troubleshooting-cards |
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.
Insights
Twitterbot Visiting Your Website
Half of your traffic probably comes from artificial agents, and there are more of them every day. Track their activity with the API or WordPress plugin.
Set Up Agent AnalyticsOther Websites
Access Control
Should I Block Twitterbot?
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.
Using Robots.txt
You can block Twitterbot or limit its access by setting user agent token rules in your website's robots.txt. We recommend setting up agent analytics to check whether it's actually following them.
| User Agent Token | Description |
|---|---|
Twitterbot |
Should match instances of Twitterbot |
# robots.txt
# This should block Twitterbot
User-agent: Twitterbot
Disallow: /
Instead of doing this manually, you can use the API or Wordpress plugin to keep your robots.txt updated with the latest known AI scrapers, crawlers, and assistants automatically.
Set Up Automatic Robots.txt