meanpathbot User Agent: What It Was & How to Block It

01 · Operator

Who operates meanpathbot

Company: Meanpath
Type: Search engine crawler
Official docs: meanpath.com

02 · Behavior

What meanpathbot does

meanpathbot crawled websites for Meanpath, which the Matomo bot database lists as a search bot. Meanpath's website no longer exists. Current hits with this user agent are unlikely to come from the original operator.

03 · Impact

Why meanpathbot matters for your site

If you allow it

Historical bot with no known current activity

If you block it

The operator's site is gone
Any current traffic may be spoofed

04 · Allow

How to allow meanpathbot

robots.txt

User-agent: meanpathbot
Allow: /

Cloudflare

# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "meanpathbot")
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: meanpathbot
Allow: /

nginx

# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "meanpathbot") { return 403; }

Apache

# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} meanpathbot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

05 · Block

How to block meanpathbot

Start with robots.txt. If meanpathbot keeps showing up in your logs, block it at your CDN or web server.

robots.txt

User-agent: meanpathbot
Disallow: /

Cloudflare

# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "meanpathbot")
Action:     Block

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: meanpathbot
Disallow: /

nginx

# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "meanpathbot") {
    return 403;
}

Apache

# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} meanpathbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>

06 · User agents

User agents we see for meanpathbot

The user agent published by the operator:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; meanpathbot/1.0; +http://www.meanpath.com/meanpathbot.html)

07 · Verification

Is it really meanpathbot?

meanpathbot’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 meanpathbot

Is meanpathbot still active?

The meanpath.com domain now redirects to a domain-for-sale page. The original service appears to be defunct.

Should I block meanpathbot?

Yes, blocking is safe. The operator no longer runs a website, so the bot brings no benefit.

meanpathbot was Meanpath’s search engine crawler