Blekkobot User Agent: Defunct Blekko Search Crawler

01 · Operator

Who operates Blekkobot

Company: Blekko
Type: Search engine crawler
Official docs: en.wikipedia.org

02 · Behavior

What Blekkobot does

Blekkobot crawled the web to build Blekko's search index. Blekko was co-founded in 2007 by Rich Skrenta. Its user agent also contained the name ScoutJet. The search engine no longer exists, so the bot has no current purpose.

03 · Impact

Why Blekkobot matters for your site

If you allow it

Historical interest only

If you block it

Blekko closed in 2015
Current traffic with this name is likely spoofed
No search visibility to gain

04 · Allow

How to allow Blekkobot

robots.txt

User-agent: Blekkobot
Allow: /

Cloudflare

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

nginx

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

Apache

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

05 · Block

How to block Blekkobot

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

robots.txt

User-agent: Blekkobot
Disallow: /

Cloudflare

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

nginx

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

Apache

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

06 · User agents

User agents we see for Blekkobot

The user agent published by the operator:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Blekkobot; ScoutJet; +http://blekko.com/about/blekkobot)

07 · Verification

Is it really Blekkobot?

Blekkobot’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 Blekkobot

Is Blekkobot still active?

No. IBM bought Blekko and closed the search service on 27 March 2015.

Should I block Blekkobot?

Yes, blocking it has no downside. Requests using this name today are not from a working search engine.

What was Blekko?

Blekko was a web search engine co-founded in 2007 by Rich Skrenta. Its technology went to IBM Watson after the acquisition.

Blekkobot was Blekko’s search engine crawler