Amzn-User user agent
Operated by Amazon
Amzn-User is the user agent Amazon uses when it fetches live web content to answer a user's request, for example in Alexa.
The Amzn-User bot at a glance
- Amzn-User is operated by Amazon and fetches a page when a person asks an AI assistant about it or shares its link.
- The robots.txt token for Amzn-User is Amzn-User.
- Blocking an AI assistant fetcher has no effect on search rankings.
- Amzn-User robots.txt support: Not for user-requested fetches.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is Amzn-User?
Amzn-User fetches live information when a customer asks, for example, an Alexa question that needs up-to-date facts. Amazon states it does not crawl content for generative AI model training.
Because a user starts these fetches, Amazon says Amzn-User may not follow all robots.txt directives.
Should you block Amzn-User?
Allow Amzn-User 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 for user-requested fetches |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow Amzn-User
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 Amzn-User is matched case-insensitively. robots.txt alone may not stop Amzn-User, so add the Nginx, Apache or Cloudflare rule as well.
robots.txt: block
# Block Amzn-User
User-agent: Amzn-User
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow Amzn-User
User-agent: Amzn-User
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep Amzn-User out of private areas only
User-agent: Amzn-User
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to Amzn-User
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(Amzn\-User)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to Amzn-User
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (Amzn\-User) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "Amzn-User")How to verify real Amzn-User traffic
Amazon publishes the IP ranges that Amzn-User uses. A request with the Amzn-User user agent from an IP outside that list is an impersonator.
How to find Amzn-User in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts Amzn-User requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "Amzn-User" 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.
Amzn-User user agent string
The full user agent Amazon publishes for Amzn-User. Version numbers such as Chrome/W.X.Y.Z change over time, so match the token, not the whole string.
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Amzn-User/0.1) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36Amzn-User FAQ
Amzn-User identifies itself with the robots.txt token "Amzn-User". A typical request header reads: Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Amzn-User/0.1) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36
Partly. Amzn-User fetches pages because a user asked for them, and Amazon says robots.txt rules may not apply to those user-requested fetches. Use a firewall rule if you must stop it.
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: Amzn-User" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Yes. Amazon publishes the IP ranges Amzn-User uses. Check the request IP against that list; a matching user agent from any other IP is an impersonator.
Search your server access log for "Amzn-User", for example with: grep -i "Amzn-User" access.log. The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits per AI bot from an uploaded log file.
Sources: Amazon crawler documentation. 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.
