01 · Operator
Who operates pingbot
- Company
- Pingdom (SolarWinds)
- Type
- Monitoring bot
- Official docs
- documentation.solarwinds.com
02 · Behavior
What pingbot does
Pingdom checks websites on behalf of its customers, for example to measure uptime and page load speed. Requests come from Pingdom probe servers. SolarWinds publishes the probe IP addresses as plain-text lists.
03 · Impact
Why pingbot matters for your site
If you allow it
- The site owner or their team may be using Pingdom to monitor the site
- Blocking it can trigger false downtime alerts
If you block it
- Anyone can run a speed test on your page with Pingdom
- Frequent checks add load without bringing visitors
04 · Allow
How to allow pingbot
robots.txt
# pingbot has no documented robots.txt token and does not read robots.txt.
# Use a Cloudflare, nginx or Apache rule instead.Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "pingbot")
Action: Skip › All Super Bot Fight Mode rules
# Also check Security › Bots: "Block AI bots" can block it regardless of robots.txt.WordPress
# pingbot has no documented robots.txt token and does not read robots.txt.
# Use a Cloudflare, nginx or Apache rule instead.nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "pingbot") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} pingbot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block pingbot
Start with robots.txt. If pingbot keeps showing up in your logs, block it at your CDN or web server.
robots.txt
# pingbot has no documented robots.txt token and does not read robots.txt.
# Use a Cloudflare, nginx or Apache rule instead.Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "pingbot")
Action: BlockWordPress
# pingbot has no documented robots.txt token and does not read robots.txt.
# Use a Cloudflare, nginx or Apache rule instead.nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "pingbot") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} pingbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for pingbot
The operator does not publish a full user agent string. Requests contain the token “pingbot”.
07 · Verification
Is it really pingbot?
Anyone can copy a user agent. Real pingbot requests come from the IP ranges published at my.pingdom.com/probes/ipv4.
FAQ
Questions about pingbot
What is pingbot?
pingbot is part of the user agent sent by Pingdom, a SolarWinds website monitoring service. The PingdomPageSpeed variant runs page speed tests.
How do I verify Pingdom requests?
Compare the source IP with SolarWinds' published probe lists at my.pingdom.com/probes/ipv4 and /probes/ipv6.
Should I block pingbot?
Usually not. If you or your team use Pingdom, blocking it will break monitoring and may trigger false alerts.
Last updated Oct 14, 2026