SemrushBot-SWA user agent
Operated by Semrush
SemrushBot-SWA is the Semrush fetcher that checks URLs for the SEO Writing Assistant.
The SemrushBot-SWA bot at a glance
- SemrushBot-SWA is operated by Semrush and fetches pages to power a specific product feature.
- The robots.txt token for SemrushBot-SWA is SemrushBot-SWA.
- Blocking an SEO tool crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings.
- SemrushBot-SWA robots.txt support: Yes.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Your choice.
What is SemrushBot-SWA?
SemrushBot-SWA visits URLs referenced while a Semrush user writes content with the SEO Writing Assistant.
Semrush documents it as a separate robots.txt token.
Should you block SemrushBot-SWA?
Blocking SemrushBot-SWA is a business decision: it protects your content but can lower how well AI products know your brand.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking an SEO tool crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | No effect on AI answers. Blocking hides your pages and backlinks from that SEO tool, including from competitors who use it, and breaks your own audits in that tool. |
| Follows robots.txt | Yes |
| Recommendation | Your choice |
How to block or allow SemrushBot-SWA
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 SemrushBot-SWA is matched case-insensitively.
robots.txt: block
# Block SemrushBot-SWA
User-agent: SemrushBot-SWA
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow SemrushBot-SWA
User-agent: SemrushBot-SWA
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep SemrushBot-SWA out of private areas only
User-agent: SemrushBot-SWA
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to SemrushBot-SWA
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(SemrushBot\-SWA)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to SemrushBot-SWA
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (SemrushBot\-SWA) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "SemrushBot-SWA")How to verify real SemrushBot-SWA traffic
Semrush publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for SemrushBot-SWA, 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 SemrushBot-SWA in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts SemrushBot-SWA requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "SemrushBot-SWA" 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.
SemrushBot-SWA FAQ
SemrushBot-SWA uses the robots.txt token "SemrushBot-SWA". Semrush does not publish a full user-agent string, so match the token inside the User-Agent header.
Yes. Semrush states that SemrushBot-SWA follows robots.txt rules written for the "SemrushBot-SWA" token.
Blocking an SEO tool crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. No effect on AI answers. Blocking hides your pages and backlinks from that SEO tool, including from competitors who use it, and breaks your own audits in that tool.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: SemrushBot-SWA" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Not reliably. Semrush publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for SemrushBot-SWA, so anyone can send the same user agent. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
Search your server access log for "SemrushBot-SWA", for example with: grep -i "SemrushBot-SWA" access.log. The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits per AI bot from an uploaded log file.
Sources: Semrush 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.
