01 · Operator
Who operates psbot
- Company
- Picsearch
- Official docs
- picsearch.com
02 · Behavior
What psbot does
psbot crawled web pages and images for the Picsearch image search index. A related user agent, psbot-page, fetched pages. Picsearch's website now says the service ran from 2000 to 2022.
03 · Impact
Why psbot matters for your site
If you allow it
- Little reason, since the service is closed
If you block it
- Picsearch no longer operates
- Current requests with this user agent are likely not from Picsearch
04 · Allow
How to allow psbot
robots.txt
User-agent: psbot
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "psbot")
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: psbot
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "psbot") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} psbot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block psbot
Start with robots.txt. If psbot keeps showing up in your logs, block it at your CDN or web server.
robots.txt
User-agent: psbot
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "psbot")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: psbot
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "psbot") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} psbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for psbot
The user agent published by the operator:
psbot/0.1 (+http://www.picsearch.com/bot.html)07 · Verification
Is it really psbot?
psbot’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 psbot
Is psbot still active?
No. Picsearch, the image search engine behind psbot, shut down in 2022.
Should I block psbot?
Blocking it is safe. Picsearch is closed, so requests using this name bring no search visibility.
Last reviewed Oct 8, 2026