TavilyBot user agent
Operated by Tavily
TavilyBot is a crawler reported for Tavily, a web search API built for AI agents.
The TavilyBot bot at a glance
- TavilyBot is operated by Tavily and indexes web pages so an AI search product can show and cite them in answers.
- The robots.txt token for TavilyBot is TavilyBot.
- Blocking an AI search crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings.
- TavilyBot robots.txt support: Not documented.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is TavilyBot?
Tavily returns search results and page content to AI agents, so its index reaches many AI tools at once.
Tavily has not published a crawler page.
Should you block TavilyBot?
Allow TavilyBot unless it causes a measurable load problem.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking an AI search crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | Blocking removes your pages from that AI search index, so its answers can no longer cite or link to your website. |
| Follows robots.txt | Not documented |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow TavilyBot
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 TavilyBot is matched case-insensitively. robots.txt alone may not stop TavilyBot, so add the Nginx, Apache or Cloudflare rule as well.
robots.txt: block
# Block TavilyBot
User-agent: TavilyBot
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow TavilyBot
User-agent: TavilyBot
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep TavilyBot out of private areas only
User-agent: TavilyBot
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to TavilyBot
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(TavilyBot)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to TavilyBot
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (TavilyBot) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "TavilyBot")How to verify real TavilyBot traffic
Tavily publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for TavilyBot, 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 TavilyBot in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts TavilyBot requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "TavilyBot" 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.
TavilyBot FAQ
TavilyBot uses the robots.txt token "TavilyBot". Tavily does not publish a full user-agent string, so match the token inside the User-Agent header.
Tavily has not documented how TavilyBot treats robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule and back it with a server rule if the traffic matters to you.
Blocking an AI search crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. Blocking removes your pages from that AI search index, so its answers can no longer cite or link to your website.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: TavilyBot" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Not reliably. Tavily publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for TavilyBot, so anyone can send the same user agent. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
Search your server access log for "TavilyBot", for example with: grep -i "TavilyBot" 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.
