01 · Operator
Who operates Exabot
- Company
- Exalead (Dassault Systèmes)
- Official docs
- chrisleverseo.com
02 · Behavior
What Exabot does
It crawled the web for Exalead's search engine. A variant, Exabot-Thumbnails, fetched pages for preview images. Exalead's public web search has been reported as discontinued.
03 · Impact
Why Exabot matters for your site
If you allow it
- Long-established, identified crawler
- Respects robots.txt per UA databases
If you block it
- Exalead's public web search is no longer a traffic source
- Cannot be verified by IP or DNS
04 · Allow
How to allow Exabot
robots.txt
User-agent: Exabot
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "Exabot")
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: Exabot
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "Exabot") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Exabot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block Exabot
Exabot follows robots.txt, so one rule is enough. Use a server or CDN rule only to stop spoofed copies.
robots.txt
User-agent: Exabot
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "Exabot")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: Exabot
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Exabot") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Exabot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for Exabot
The user agent published by the operator:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Exabot/3.0; +http://www.exabot.com/go/robot)07 · Verification
Is it really Exabot?
Exabot’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 Exabot
Who operates Exabot?
Exabot belongs to Exalead, a French search company owned by Dassault Systèmes since 2010.
Is Exabot the same as ExaBot from Exa?
No. Exabot is Exalead's crawler. ExaBot is a different crawler from the AI search company Exa.
Should I block Exabot?
It is not harmful, but Exalead's public search brings little traffic. Block it if you want to save crawl load.
Last reviewed Oct 7, 2026