xAI-Grok user agent
Operated by xAI
xAI-Grok is a robots.txt token reported for xAI's automated content collection for Grok.
The xAI-Grok bot at a glance
- xAI-Grok is operated by xAI and collects public web pages that may be used to train AI models.
- The robots.txt token for xAI-Grok is xAI-Grok.
- Blocking an AI training crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings.
- xAI-Grok robots.txt support: Not documented.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Your choice.
What is xAI-Grok?
xAI-Grok is listed as an automated collection token rather than a user-triggered fetcher.
xAI has not documented how it treats robots.txt.
Should you block xAI-Grok?
Blocking xAI-Grok 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 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 | Not documented |
| Recommendation | Your choice |
How to block or allow xAI-Grok
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 xAI-Grok is matched case-insensitively. robots.txt alone may not stop xAI-Grok, so add the Nginx, Apache or Cloudflare rule as well.
robots.txt: block
# Block xAI-Grok
User-agent: xAI-Grok
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow xAI-Grok
User-agent: xAI-Grok
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep xAI-Grok out of private areas only
User-agent: xAI-Grok
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to xAI-Grok
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(xAI\-Grok)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to xAI-Grok
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (xAI\-Grok) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "xAI-Grok")How to verify real xAI-Grok traffic
xAI publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for xAI-Grok, 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 xAI-Grok in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts xAI-Grok requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "xAI-Grok" 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.
xAI-Grok FAQ
xAI-Grok uses the robots.txt token "xAI-Grok". xAI does not publish a full user-agent string, so match the token inside the User-Agent header.
xAI has not documented how xAI-Grok treats robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule and back it with a server rule if the traffic matters to you.
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: xAI-Grok" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Not reliably. xAI publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for xAI-Grok, so anyone can send the same user agent. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
Search your server access log for "xAI-Grok", for example with: grep -i "xAI-Grok" 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.
