Exabot
Exalead •
Since 2004
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Official Docs
What is Exabot?
Exabot is the web crawler for Exalead, a French search engine technology company now part of Dassault Systèmes. While Exalead discontinued its public web search, their technology powers enterprise search solutions and specialized vertical search engines. The crawler focuses on enterprise and B2B content, with particular strength in technical and engineering content. Exabot demonstrates how search technology can pivot from consumer to enterprise markets.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Exabot/3.0; +http://www.exabot.com/go/robot)
How to Control Exabot
Block Completely
To prevent Exabot from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Exabot
User-agent: Exabot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Exabot
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: Exabot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Exabot
Verification Method:
Exabot user agent
Exabot user agent
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Exabot in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Exabot/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(compatible; Exabot/3\.0; \+http\://www\.exabot\.com/go/robot\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/Exabot[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Exalead.*Exabot/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Exabot
function detect_exabot() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Exabot/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Exabot 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Exabot
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_exabot():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Exabot'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class ExabotMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Exabot
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Exabot
function detectExabot(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Exabot/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Exabot detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Exabot';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectExabot);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Exabot
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Exabot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Exabot [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Exabot" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Exabot/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Exabot
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_exabot {
default 0;
~*Exabot 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_exabot) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_exabot) {
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_exabot) {
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 | Allow | Essential for product visibility in search results |
| Blog/News | Allow | Increases content reach and discoverability |
| SaaS Application | Block | No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources |
| Documentation | Allow | Improves documentation discoverability for developers |
| Corporate Site | Allow | Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets |
Advanced robots.txt Configurations
E-commerce Site Configuration
User-agent: Exabot
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: Exabot
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Exabot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Exabot
Robots.txt Name
Exabot
Category
search
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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