AI2Bot
Allen Institute for AI •
Since 2023
Quick Actions
Official Docs
What is AI2Bot?
AI2Bot is the web crawler operated by the Allen Institute for AI (AI2), a non-profit research institute. The bot crawls web content to support AI research projects including Semantic Scholar, a free academic search engine, and the training of OLMo, AI2's open-source language model. The crawler respects robots.txt directives and is used for legitimate research purposes. AI2 is committed to responsible AI development and provides clear documentation about its crawling practices.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible) AI2Bot (+https://www.allenai.org/crawler)
How to Control AI2Bot
Block Completely
To prevent AI2Bot from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block AI2Bot
User-agent: AI2Bot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: AI2Bot
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /public/
Set Crawl Delay
To slow down the crawl rate (note: not all bots respect this directive):
User-agent: AI2Bot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify AI2Bot
Verification Method:
Verify requests originate from Allen Institute IP ranges
Verify requests originate from Allen Institute IP ranges
Learn more in the official documentation.
⚠️ AI Training Notice
This bot may collect and use your website content for AI model training. Consider whether you want your content used for this purpose before allowing access.
This bot may collect and use your website content for AI model training. Consider whether you want your content used for this purpose before allowing access.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect AI2Bot in your application:
Basic Pattern
/AI2Bot/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(compatible\) AI2Bot \(\+https\://www\.allenai\.org/crawler\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/AI2Bot[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Allen Institute for AI.*AI2Bot/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for AI2Bot
function detect_ai2bot() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/AI2Bot/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('AI2Bot detected from IP: ' . $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
// Set cache headers
header('Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600');
header('X-Robots-Tag: noarchive');
// Optional: Serve cached version
if (file_exists('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html')) {
readfile('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for AI2Bot
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_ai2bot():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'AI2Bot'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class AI2BotMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for AI2Bot
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect AI2Bot
function detectAI2Bot(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /AI2Bot/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('AI2Bot detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'AI2Bot';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectAI2Bot);
# Apache .htaccess rules for AI2Bot
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} AI2Bot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} AI2Bot [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "AI2Bot" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /AI2Bot/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for AI2Bot
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_ai2bot {
default 0;
~*AI2Bot 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_ai2bot) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_ai2bot) {
root /var/www/cached;
try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/index.html @backend;
}
try_files $uri @backend;
}
# Add headers for bot requests
location @backend {
if ($is_ai2bot) {
add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600";
add_header X-Robots-Tag "noarchive";
}
proxy_pass http://backend;
}
}
Should You Block This Bot?
Recommendations based on your website type:
| Site Type | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | Limit Access | Protect pricing and inventory data from AI training |
| Blog/News | Consider Blocking | Your content may be used for AI training without compensation |
| SaaS Application | Block | No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources |
| Documentation | Selective | Allow for public docs, block for internal docs |
| Corporate Site | Limit | Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets |
Advanced robots.txt Configurations
E-commerce Site Configuration
User-agent: AI2Bot
Crawl-delay: 5
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /*?sort=
Disallow: /*?filter=
Disallow: /*&page=
Allow: /products/
Allow: /categories/
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Publishing/Blog Configuration
User-agent: AI2Bot
# Blocking AI training bot
Disallow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: AI2Bot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
AI2Bot
Robots.txt Name
AI2Bot
Category
ai
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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