01 · Operator
Who operates Pinterest
- Company
- Type
- Social preview bot
- Official docs
- help.pinterest.com
02 · Behavior
What Pinterest does
Pinterestbot indexes public web pages so content can be discovered on Pinterest. It also fetches the pages behind Pins to keep Pin metadata accurate. It uses the "Pinterest/0.2" and "Pinterestbot/1.0" user agents.
03 · Impact
Why Pinterest matters for your site
If you allow it
- Keeps Pins that link to your site accurate
- Supports discovery and referral traffic from Pinterest
If you block it
- No benefit if your content is not shared on Pinterest
- Adds crawl load on large sites
04 · Allow
How to allow Pinterest
robots.txt
User-agent: Pinterestbot
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "Pinterestbot")
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: Pinterestbot
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "Pinterestbot") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Pinterestbot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block Pinterest
Pinterest follows robots.txt, so one rule is enough. Use a server or CDN rule only to stop spoofed copies.
robots.txt
User-agent: Pinterestbot
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "Pinterestbot")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: Pinterestbot
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Pinterestbot") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Pinterestbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for Pinterest
The user agent published by the operator:
Pinterest/0.2 (+https://www.pinterest.com/bot.html)07 · Verification
Is it really Pinterest?
Anyone can copy a user agent. A reverse DNS lookup of a real request resolves to pinterest.com</code>, <code>pinterestcrawler.com, and that hostname resolves back to the same IP.
FAQ
Questions about Pinterest
What is the Pinterest/0.2 user agent?
It is one of the user agents of Pinterestbot, Pinterest's crawler. It fetches pages to index content and update Pin metadata.
Which robots.txt token does Pinterest use?
Pinterest respects the token "Pinterestbot". It supports Crawl-delay values up to 1 second.
How can I verify Pinterest crawler requests?
Run a reverse DNS lookup on the IP and check that it ends in pinterest.com or pinterestcrawler.com. Then confirm with a forward lookup.
Last reviewed Oct 8, 2026