kagi-fetcher user agent
Operated by Kagi
kagi-fetcher is a Kagi user agent reported as fetching pages to answer questions in Kagi's AI tools.
The kagi-fetcher bot at a glance
- kagi-fetcher is operated by Kagi and fetches a page when a person asks an AI assistant about it or shares its link.
- The robots.txt token for kagi-fetcher is kagi-fetcher.
- Blocking an AI assistant fetcher has no effect on search rankings.
- kagi-fetcher robots.txt support: Not documented.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is kagi-fetcher?
kagi-fetcher reads pages for Kagi Assistant and related AI features when users ask.
Kagi has not documented its robots.txt behaviour.
Should you block kagi-fetcher?
Allow kagi-fetcher unless it causes a measurable load problem.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking an AI assistant fetcher has no effect on search rankings. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | Blocking stops the assistant from reading your page when a user asks about it or pastes your link, so its answer falls back to other sources. |
| Follows robots.txt | Not documented |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow kagi-fetcher
Put the robots.txt rule in the file at the root of every domain and subdomain, for example https://example.com/robots.txt. The token kagi-fetcher is matched case-insensitively. robots.txt alone may not stop kagi-fetcher, so add the Nginx, Apache or Cloudflare rule as well.
robots.txt: block
# Block kagi-fetcher
User-agent: kagi-fetcher
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow kagi-fetcher
User-agent: kagi-fetcher
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep kagi-fetcher out of private areas only
User-agent: kagi-fetcher
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to kagi-fetcher
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(kagi\-fetcher)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to kagi-fetcher
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (kagi\-fetcher) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "kagi-fetcher")How to verify real kagi-fetcher traffic
Kagi publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for kagi-fetcher, so the user agent cannot be verified. Anyone can send the same string. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
How to find kagi-fetcher in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts kagi-fetcher requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "kagi-fetcher" access.log | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20For a full report per AI bot, upload the log to the AI Log File Analyzer, a free tool by Justin Hà.
kagi-fetcher FAQ
kagi-fetcher uses the robots.txt token "kagi-fetcher". Kagi does not publish a full user-agent string, so match the token inside the User-Agent header.
Kagi has not documented how kagi-fetcher treats robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule and back it with a server rule if the traffic matters to you.
Blocking an AI assistant fetcher has no effect on search rankings. Blocking stops the assistant from reading your page when a user asks about it or pastes your link, so its answer falls back to other sources.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: kagi-fetcher" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Not reliably. Kagi publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for kagi-fetcher, so anyone can send the same user agent. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
Search your server access log for "kagi-fetcher", for example with: grep -i "kagi-fetcher" access.log. The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits per AI bot from an uploaded log file.
Sources: Public bot registry. Last reviewed by Justin Hà.
See which of these bots actually reach your website
The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits from GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and other AI crawlers in your server log, for free. The GEO Technical Package sets up robots.txt, llms.txt and crawler access for AI search.
