01 · Operator
Who operates istellabot
- Company
- Tiscali
02 · Behavior
What istellabot does
istella was built by Tiscali with the founders of Arianna, the University of Pisa and Italy's CNR. The crawler fetches pages for the istella index. We found no technical documentation for the bot.
03 · Impact
Why istellabot matters for your site
If you allow it
- Pages can appear in istella search results
- Identifies itself by name
If you block it
- Little search traffic outside Italy
- No published IP list or verification method
04 · Allow
How to allow istellabot
robots.txt
User-agent: istellabot
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "istellabot")
Action: Skip › All Super Bot Fight Mode rules
# Also check Security › Bots: "Block AI bots" can block it regardless of robots.txt.WordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: istellabot
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "istellabot") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} istellabot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block istellabot
Start with robots.txt. If istellabot keeps showing up in your logs, block it at your CDN or web server.
robots.txt
User-agent: istellabot
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "istellabot")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: istellabot
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "istellabot") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} istellabot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for istellabot
The operator does not publish a full user agent string. Requests contain the token “istellabot”.
07 · Verification
Is it really istellabot?
istellabot’s operator publishes no IP ranges or hostnames, so requests cannot be verified. Treat the user agent as a claim, and watch your logs for unusual request rates.
FAQ
Questions about istellabot
What is istellabot?
It is the crawler of istella, a search engine launched by Tiscali in 2013.
Should I block istellabot?
Only if you do not want to appear in istella results or see abusive traffic. Fake bots may also use the name.
Last reviewed Oct 8, 2026