Qwantbot
Qwant •
Web Crawler
What is Qwantbot?
Qwant documents Qwantbot as a crawler used to improve its web search index. Its current help page identifies Qwantbot as the token to use in robots.txt, describes robots compliance and gives reverse-DNS and IP-range checks. This is a different documented token from the existing Qwantify directory entry; the collected full string is shorter than Qwant's current published examples, so its source should be verified before attribution.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Qwantbot/1.0; +https://help.qwant.com/bot/)
How to Control Qwantbot
Block Completely
To prevent Qwantbot from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Qwantbot
User-agent: Qwantbot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Qwantbot
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: Qwantbot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Qwantbot
Verification Method:
Confirm reverse DNS under qwant.com and forward-resolve it to the original IP, or check Qwant's current published IP ranges. The observed full string differs from current examples.
Confirm reverse DNS under qwant.com and forward-resolve it to the original IP, or check Qwant's current published IP ranges. The observed full string differs from current examples.
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Qwantbot in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Qwantbot/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla\/5\.0 \(compatible; Qwantbot\/1\.0; \+https\:\/\/help\.qwant\.com\/bot\/\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/Qwantbot[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Qwant.*Qwantbot/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Qwantbot
function detect_qwantbot() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Qwantbot/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Qwantbot 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Qwantbot
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_qwantbot():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Qwantbot'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class qwantbotMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Qwantbot
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Qwantbot
function detect_qwantbot(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Qwantbot/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Qwantbot detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Qwantbot';
}
next();
}
app.use(detect_qwantbot);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Qwantbot
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Qwantbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Qwantbot [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Qwantbot" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Qwantbot/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Qwantbot
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_qwantbot {
default 0;
~*Qwantbot 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_qwantbot) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_qwantbot) {
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_qwantbot) {
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: Qwantbot
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: Qwantbot
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Qwantbot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Qwantbot
Robots.txt Name
Qwantbot
Category
search
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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