Baiduspider-image user agent
Operated by Baidu
Baiduspider-image is the Baidu crawler for Baidu image search.
The Baiduspider-image bot at a glance
- Baiduspider-image is operated by Baidu and crawls web pages for a search engine index.
- The robots.txt token for Baiduspider-image is Baiduspider-image.
- Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results.
- Baiduspider-image robots.txt support: Yes.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is Baiduspider-image?
A Baiduspider-image rule only affects images on Baidu.
Baidu lists this user agent in its official help on blocking Baiduspider.
Should you block Baiduspider-image?
Allow Baiduspider-image unless it causes a measurable load problem.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | AI features built on that search index, such as Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on top of Googlebot, also lose access to your pages. |
| Follows robots.txt | Yes |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow Baiduspider-image
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 Baiduspider-image is matched case-insensitively.
robots.txt: block
# Block Baiduspider-image
User-agent: Baiduspider-image
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow Baiduspider-image
User-agent: Baiduspider-image
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep Baiduspider-image out of private areas only
User-agent: Baiduspider-image
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to Baiduspider-image
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(Baiduspider\-image)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to Baiduspider-image
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (Baiduspider\-image) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "Baiduspider-image")How to verify real Baiduspider-image traffic
Reverse DNS check: look up the request IP, confirm the hostname ends in baidu.com, baidu.jp, then look up that hostname and confirm it returns the same IP.
# 1. Reverse lookup: the hostname must end in baidu.com, baidu.jp
host REQUEST_IP
# 2. Forward lookup: must return the same REQUEST_IP
host HOSTNAME_FROM_STEP_1How to find Baiduspider-image in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts Baiduspider-image requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "Baiduspider-image" 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.
Baiduspider-image FAQ
Baiduspider-image uses the robots.txt token "Baiduspider-image". Baidu does not publish a full user-agent string, so match the token inside the User-Agent header.
Yes. Baidu states that Baiduspider-image follows robots.txt rules written for the "Baiduspider-image" token.
Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results. AI features built on that search index, such as Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on top of Googlebot, also lose access to your pages.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: Baiduspider-image" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Yes. Run a reverse DNS lookup on the request IP; a real Baiduspider-image request resolves to baidu.com, baidu.jp, and a forward lookup of that hostname returns the same IP.
Search your server access log for "Baiduspider-image", for example with: grep -i "Baiduspider-image" access.log. The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits per AI bot from an uploaded log file.
Sources: Baidu 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.
