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DuckDuckBot

DuckDuckBot is DuckDuckGo's crawler for improving its search results.
DuckDuckBot
Search Engine Crawler

What is DuckDuckBot?

DuckDuckBot is DuckDuckGo's crawler for improving its search results. DuckDuckGo says it maintains this crawler and several of its own indexes, while many traditional links and images in result pages still come from Bing. A DuckDuckBot fetch can support DuckDuckGo's search data, but it does not guarantee that the page will appear for a query.

DuckDuckGo uses a different crawler, DuckAssistBot, to fetch pages in real time for AI-assisted answers. Its documentation says those answers cite sources and that DuckAssistBot data is not used to train AI models. Blocking DuckDuckBot therefore addresses organic search crawling, not the separate AI-answer workflow.

The stable identity is DuckDuckBot, with DuckDuckGo currently documenting a versioned form beginning DuckDuckBot/1.1. DuckDuckGo says it respects WWW::RobotRules, and this entry marks robots support as true. The matching Cloudflare snapshot says false, so the official statement and third-party record disagree.

DuckDuckGo publishes the source addresses used by DuckDuckBot, but this catalog entry does not mark IP verification and provides no request-signature directory. Compare an address with DuckDuckGo's current JSON list before treating it as authentic. The user-agent text by itself can be copied.

Relevant for AI searchDuckDuckGo

Is DuckDuckBot relevant for AI search?

Yes. DuckDuckBot feeds DuckDuckGo, so the pages it can reach shape what those AI products say about you.

DuckDuckBot feeds a search index that also powers that engine's AI answer features and overviews. One crawl can serve a classic results page and a generated summary, so blocking it costs you both the rankings you would expect and a growing share of AI answers built on the same index.

How to handle DuckDuckBot

Allow DuckDuckBot on public pages that should remain eligible for DuckDuckGo's organic search systems. Exclude only the sections you do not want this crawler to collect, and protect sensitive routes with authentication.

A complete block is:

User-agent: DuckDuckBot
Disallow: /

DuckDuckGo officially says this token follows robots rules, although Cloudflare's fact record conflicts. If your goal is to opt out of DuckDuckGo's AI-assisted answers without changing organic search, write a separate rule for DuckAssistBot instead.

Examples

  • A privacy-focused publisher allows DuckDuckBot to fetch its public reporting so DuckDuckGo can consider those pages for search results.
  • A site blocks DuckAssistBot from AI-assisted answers but leaves DuckDuckBot allowed for ordinary DuckDuckGo search.
  • An analyst checks a claimed DuckDuckBot address against DuckDuckGo's current JSON list before classifying the request.

Frequently asked questions about DuckDuckBot

Learn about AI visibility monitoring and how Promptwatch helps your brand succeed in AI search.

DuckDuckGo operates DuckDuckBot to support and improve its search results.

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