DoubaoBot user agent
Operated by ByteDance
DoubaoBot is a ByteDance crawler reported as collecting web content for the Doubao AI assistant.
The DoubaoBot bot at a glance
- DoubaoBot is operated by ByteDance and indexes web pages so an AI search product can show and cite them in answers, and fetches a page when a person asks an AI assistant about it or shares its link.
- The robots.txt token for DoubaoBot is DoubaoBot.
- Blocking an AI assistant fetcher has no effect on search rankings.
- DoubaoBot robots.txt support: Not documented.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Your choice.
What is DoubaoBot?
DoubaoBot is distinct from Bytespider and TikTokSpider and is tied to ByteDance’s Doubao assistant.
Sites targeting users in China may want Doubao to read their pages.
Should you block DoubaoBot?
Blocking DoubaoBot is a business decision: it protects your content but can lower how well AI products know your brand.
| 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 | Your choice |
How to block or allow DoubaoBot
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 DoubaoBot is matched case-insensitively. robots.txt alone may not stop DoubaoBot, so add the Nginx, Apache or Cloudflare rule as well.
robots.txt: block
# Block DoubaoBot
User-agent: DoubaoBot
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow DoubaoBot
User-agent: DoubaoBot
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep DoubaoBot out of private areas only
User-agent: DoubaoBot
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to DoubaoBot
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(DoubaoBot)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to DoubaoBot
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (DoubaoBot) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "DoubaoBot")How to verify real DoubaoBot traffic
ByteDance publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for DoubaoBot, 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 DoubaoBot in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts DoubaoBot requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "DoubaoBot" 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.
DoubaoBot FAQ
DoubaoBot uses the robots.txt token "DoubaoBot". ByteDance does not publish a full user-agent string, so match the token inside the User-Agent header.
ByteDance has not documented how DoubaoBot 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: DoubaoBot" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Not reliably. ByteDance publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for DoubaoBot, so anyone can send the same user agent. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
Search your server access log for "DoubaoBot", for example with: grep -i "DoubaoBot" 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.
