01 · Operator
Who operates LyonlBot
- Company
- Lyonl Search
- Official docs
- lyonl.com
02 · Behavior
What LyonlBot does
LyonlBot discovers and refreshes publicly available web documents for the Lyonl Search index. It checks robots.txt before fetching documents and redirects. Specialized variants LyonlBot-Image and LyonlBot-News use their own tokens.
03 · Impact
Why LyonlBot matters for your site
If you allow it
- Can make your pages findable in Lyonl Search
- Checks robots.txt before every fetch
If you block it
- Small search engine with uncertain traffic value
- No published IP ranges to verify it
04 · Allow
How to allow LyonlBot
robots.txt
User-agent: lyonlbot
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "lyonlbot")
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: lyonlbot
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "lyonlbot") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} lyonlbot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block LyonlBot
LyonlBot follows robots.txt, so one rule is enough. Use a server or CDN rule only to stop spoofed copies.
robots.txt
User-agent: lyonlbot
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "lyonlbot")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: lyonlbot
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "lyonlbot") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} lyonlbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for LyonlBot
The user agent published by the operator:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; LyonlBot/1.0; +https://lyonl.com/bot.html)07 · Verification
Is it really LyonlBot?
LyonlBot’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 LyonlBot
What is LyonlBot?
LyonlBot is the crawler of Lyonl Search. It builds and maintains Lyonl's open web search index.
How do I block LyonlBot?
Use User-agent: lyonlbot in robots.txt. The image and news crawlers use lyonlbot-image and lyonlbot-news.
Does blocking LyonlBot remove my pages from Lyonl Search?
Not necessarily. Lyonl says robots.txt controls fetching only; use noindex to keep URLs out of results.
Last reviewed Oct 8, 2026