01 · Operator
Who operates Qwantbot
- Company
- Qwant
- Official docs
- help.qwant.com
02 · Behavior
What Qwantbot does
Qwantbot crawls websites to build and refresh the Qwant search index. A news variant identifies itself as Qwantbot-news. The user agent may also include a worker ID that names the source machine.
03 · Impact
Why Qwantbot matters for your site
If you allow it
- Your pages can appear in Qwant search
- Honors robots.txt and crawl-delay
- Easy to verify
If you block it
- Limited referral traffic for many sites
- Adds crawl load
04 · Allow
How to allow Qwantbot
robots.txt
User-agent: Qwantbot
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "Qwantbot")
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: Qwantbot
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "Qwantbot") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Qwantbot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block Qwantbot
Qwantbot follows robots.txt, so one rule is enough. Use a server or CDN rule only to stop spoofed copies.
robots.txt
User-agent: Qwantbot
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "Qwantbot")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: Qwantbot
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Qwantbot") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Qwantbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for Qwantbot
| User agent | Share | Last active | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Qwantbot/1.0; +https://help.qwant.com/bot/) |
52% | Yesterday | Unverified |
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Qwantbot/1.0; +https://help.qwant.com/bot/) |
48% | Yesterday | Verified |
07 · Verification
Is it really Qwantbot?
Anyone can copy a user agent. Real Qwantbot requests come from the IP ranges published at help.qwant.com/qwantbot.json. A reverse DNS lookup of a real request resolves to qwant.com, and that hostname resolves back to the same IP.
IP addresses we saw from verified Qwantbot requests
| IP range | Share | Last active |
|---|---|---|
194.187.171.133 |
16% | 6 days ago |
194.187.171.158 |
16% | 20 days ago |
194.187.171.155 |
9.3% | 20 days ago |
194.187.171.140 |
8.7% | 22 days ago |
194.187.171.144 |
6.8% | 20 days ago |
194.187.171.153 |
5.3% | 2 days ago |
194.187.171.175 |
3.7% | 2 days ago |
194.187.171.152 |
3.7% | 2 days ago |
194.187.171.147 |
3.4% | 3 days ago |
194.187.171.143 |
3.4% | 6 days ago |
Top 10 of 21 ranges. Always check against the operator’s current list; ranges change.
FAQ
Questions about Qwantbot
What is Qwantbot?
Qwantbot is the official indexing robot of the Qwant search engine.
Does Qwantbot respect crawl-delay?
Yes. Qwant documents support for robots.txt rules, including the Crawl-delay directive.
How do I verify Qwantbot?
Run a reverse DNS lookup and check that the hostname ends in qwant.com, then confirm with forward DNS. You can also check Qwant's qwantbot.json IP list.
Last updated Oct 27, 2026