Bots by company
Microsoft bots and crawlers
Microsoft runs Bing search, whose index also feeds Microsoft Copilot answers.
Microsoft bots at a glance
- Microsoft runs 7 bots listed in this directory.
- They belong to: Ads and Platform Fetchers, AI Search Crawlers, Search Engine Crawlers, Social and Messaging Previews.
- Each Microsoft bot has its own robots.txt token, so each purpose can be allowed or blocked separately.
- Website: www.microsoft.com
Every Microsoft bot
| Bot | Group | Purpose | robots.txt | For GEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AdIdxBot | Ads and Platform Fetchers | AdsOfficial docs | Yes | Allow |
| AzureAI-SearchBot | AI Search Crawlers | AI searchReported | Not documented | Your choice |
| Bingbot | Search Engine Crawlers | Search indexOfficial docs | Yes | Allow |
| BingPreview | Search Engine Crawlers | Search indexOfficial docs | Yes | Allow |
| MicrosoftPreview | Social and Messaging Previews | Link previewOfficial docs | Yes | Allow |
| msnbot | Search Engine Crawlers | Search indexReported | Not documented | Allow |
| SkypeUriPreview | Social and Messaging Previews | Link previewReported | Not documented | Allow |
Block or allow all Microsoft bots
The rules below name every Microsoft token in this directory. To block training but keep AI search, delete the search and assistant tokens from the block rule.
robots.txt: block
# Block all Microsoft bots
User-agent: adidxbot
User-agent: AzureAI-SearchBot
User-agent: bingbot
User-agent: BingPreview
User-agent: MicrosoftPreview
User-agent: msnbot
User-agent: SkypeUriPreview
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow all Microsoft bots
User-agent: adidxbot
User-agent: AzureAI-SearchBot
User-agent: bingbot
User-agent: BingPreview
User-agent: MicrosoftPreview
User-agent: msnbot
User-agent: SkypeUriPreview
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep all Microsoft bots out of private areas only
User-agent: adidxbot
User-agent: AzureAI-SearchBot
User-agent: bingbot
User-agent: BingPreview
User-agent: MicrosoftPreview
User-agent: msnbot
User-agent: SkypeUriPreview
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to all Microsoft bots
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(adidxbot|AzureAI\-SearchBot|bingbot|BingPreview|MicrosoftPreview|msnbot|SkypeUriPreview)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to all Microsoft bots
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (adidxbot|AzureAI\-SearchBot|bingbot|BingPreview|MicrosoftPreview|msnbot|SkypeUriPreview) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "adidxbot") or (http.user_agent contains "AzureAI-SearchBot") or (http.user_agent contains "bingbot") or (http.user_agent contains "BingPreview") or (http.user_agent contains "MicrosoftPreview") or (http.user_agent contains "msnbot") or (http.user_agent contains "SkypeUriPreview")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.
