Swiftbot
Swiftype •
Since 2012
Quick Actions
Official Docs
What is Swiftbot?
Swiftbot is the crawler for Swiftype, now part of Elastic, providing enterprise search solutions. The bot indexes content for organizations implementing Swiftype Site Search or Enterprise Search on their websites and internal systems. Unlike public search engines, Swiftbot typically crawls specific sites configured by customers to power their internal search functionality. The crawler can handle various content types and provides relevance tuning features for optimized search experiences within organizations.
User Agent String
Swiftbot/1.0 (swiftype.com)
How to Control Swiftbot
Block Completely
To prevent Swiftbot from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Swiftbot
User-agent: Swiftbot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Swiftbot
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: Swiftbot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Swiftbot
Verification Method:
Configured for specific customers
Configured for specific customers
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Swiftbot in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Swiftbot/i
Strict Pattern
/^Swiftbot/1\.0 \(swiftype\.com\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/Swiftbot[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Swiftype.*Swiftbot/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Swiftbot
function detect_swiftbot() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Swiftbot/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Swiftbot 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Swiftbot
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_swiftbot():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Swiftbot'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class SwiftbotMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Swiftbot
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Swiftbot
function detectSwiftbot(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Swiftbot/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Swiftbot detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Swiftbot';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectSwiftbot);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Swiftbot
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Swiftbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Swiftbot [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Swiftbot" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Swiftbot/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Swiftbot
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_swiftbot {
default 0;
~*Swiftbot 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_swiftbot) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_swiftbot) {
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_swiftbot) {
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: Swiftbot
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: Swiftbot
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Swiftbot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Swiftbot
Robots.txt Name
Swiftbot
Category
search, other
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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