01 · Operator
Who operates TinEye-bot
- Company
- Idée Inc.
- Official docs
- tineye.com
02 · Behavior
What TinEye-bot does
TinEye-bot crawls web pages to find images for the TinEye reverse image search index. TinEye describes it as a crawler for an open image search project. Questions about its behaviour go to TinEye support.
03 · Impact
Why TinEye-bot matters for your site
If you allow it
- Your images can be found through TinEye reverse image search
- Helps people trace image sources and copies
If you block it
- Little direct referral traffic for most sites
- Image crawling adds bandwidth load
04 · Allow
How to allow TinEye-bot
robots.txt
User-agent: TinEye-bot
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "TinEye-bot")
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: TinEye-bot
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "TinEye\-bot") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} TinEye\-bot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block TinEye-bot
Start with robots.txt. If TinEye-bot keeps showing up in your logs, block it at your CDN or web server.
robots.txt
User-agent: TinEye-bot
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "TinEye-bot")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: TinEye-bot
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "TinEye\-bot") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} TinEye\-bot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for TinEye-bot
| User agent | Share | Last seen | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; TinEye-Web/2.0.1; +http://www.tineye.com/cr.html) |
100% | Unverified |
07 · Verification
Is it really TinEye-bot?
TinEye-bot’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 TinEye-bot
What is TinEye-bot?
It is the crawler of TinEye, a reverse image search engine. It collects images for TinEye's index.
How do I contact TinEye about its crawler?
TinEye's crawler page asks site owners to contact support at tineye dot com.
How do I block TinEye-bot?
Add a robots.txt group for User-agent: TinEye-bot. TinEye does not document its robots.txt handling, so also consider a server rule.
Last reviewed Oct 8, 2026