DeepSeekBot user agent
Operated by DeepSeek
DeepSeekBot is a crawler reported as collecting web content to train DeepSeek's language models.
The DeepSeekBot bot at a glance
- DeepSeekBot is operated by DeepSeek and collects public web pages that may be used to train AI models.
- The robots.txt token for DeepSeekBot is DeepSeekBot.
- Blocking an AI training crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings.
- DeepSeekBot robots.txt support: No.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Consider blocking.
What is DeepSeekBot?
DeepSeekBot is linked to DeepSeek’s open-weight models.
Public registries report that it does not respect robots.txt, so a firewall rule is the reliable way to stop it.
Should you block DeepSeekBot?
Consider blocking DeepSeekBot: it brings little visibility back and its robots.txt behaviour is weak or undocumented.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking an AI training crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | Blocking keeps your future pages out of that company's training data, so its models may know less about your brand over time. It does not remove you from that company's AI search, which uses a separate bot. |
| Follows robots.txt | No |
| Recommendation | Consider blocking |
How to block or allow DeepSeekBot
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 DeepSeekBot is matched case-insensitively. robots.txt alone may not stop DeepSeekBot, so add the Nginx, Apache or Cloudflare rule as well.
robots.txt: block
# Block DeepSeekBot
User-agent: DeepSeekBot
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow DeepSeekBot
User-agent: DeepSeekBot
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep DeepSeekBot out of private areas only
User-agent: DeepSeekBot
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to DeepSeekBot
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(DeepSeekBot)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to DeepSeekBot
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (DeepSeekBot) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "DeepSeekBot")How to verify real DeepSeekBot traffic
DeepSeek publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for DeepSeekBot, 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 DeepSeekBot in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts DeepSeekBot requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "DeepSeekBot" 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.
DeepSeekBot FAQ
DeepSeekBot uses the robots.txt token "DeepSeekBot". DeepSeek does not publish a full user-agent string, so match the token inside the User-Agent header.
No reliable evidence says it does. Reports show DeepSeekBot crawling sites that disallow it, so pair robots.txt with a firewall or server rule.
Blocking an AI training crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. Blocking keeps your future pages out of that company's training data, so its models may know less about your brand over time. It does not remove you from that company's AI search, which uses a separate bot.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: DeepSeekBot" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Not reliably. DeepSeek publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for DeepSeekBot, so anyone can send the same user agent. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
Search your server access log for "DeepSeekBot", for example with: grep -i "DeepSeekBot" 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.
