YouBot

Last updated 13 hours ago.

What is YouBot?

About

YouBot is a web crawler used by You.com to index search results that allow their AI Assistant to answer user questions. The assistant's answers normally contain references to the website as inline sources.

Detail

Operator	You.com
Documentation	https://about.you.com/youbot/

Type

AI Search Crawler

Indexes web content for AI-powered search results

Expected Behavior

AI search crawlers do not adhere to a fixed visitation schedule for websites. The frequency of visits varies widely based on many factors, and can even happen on-demand in response to a user query.

Insights

Activity on Your Website

Half of your website's 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 Analytics

Other Websites

of top websites are currently blocking YouBot in some way

Learn How →

Access Control

Should I Block YouBot?

Probably not. AI search crawlers power AI search engines, which are a useful way for users to discover your website. AI search engine assistants usually cite their sources and provide links to their results.

Using Robots.txt

User Agent Token	Description
`YouBot`	Should match instances of YouBot

You can block YouBot or limit its access by setting user agent token rules in your website's robots.txt.

# robots.txt
# This should block YouBot

User-agent: YouBot
Disallow: /

Instead of doing this manually, you can generate a robots.txt using the API or WordPress plugin that stays up to date with the agent list automatically. The WordPress plugin can also enforce your robots.txt and block agents who try to ignore the rules.

Set Up Your Robots.txt