TelegramBot
Telegram •
Since 2015
Quick Actions
Official Docs
What is TelegramBot?
TelegramBot generates instant link previews for URLs shared in Telegram chats and channels. With Telegram's growing popularity, especially in certain regions and among privacy-conscious users, the bot has become increasingly important for content distribution. It supports Instant View for optimized article reading within Telegram and can generate rich previews with images and summaries. The bot respects standard meta tags and provides special support for Telegram's Instant View format. For publishers targeting Telegram's audience, optimizing for this bot can significantly improve content engagement.
User Agent String
TelegramBot (like TwitterBot)
How to Control TelegramBot
Block Completely
To prevent TelegramBot from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block TelegramBot
User-agent: TelegramBot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: TelegramBot
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: TelegramBot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify TelegramBot
Verification Method:
Check for TelegramBot user agent
Check for TelegramBot user agent
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect TelegramBot in your application:
Basic Pattern
/TelegramBot/i
Strict Pattern
/^TelegramBot \(like TwitterBot\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/TelegramBot[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Telegram.*TelegramBot/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for TelegramBot
function detect_telegrambot() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/TelegramBot/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('TelegramBot 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for TelegramBot
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_telegrambot():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'TelegramBot'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class TelegramBotMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for TelegramBot
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect TelegramBot
function detectTelegramBot(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /TelegramBot/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('TelegramBot detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'TelegramBot';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectTelegramBot);
# Apache .htaccess rules for TelegramBot
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} TelegramBot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} TelegramBot [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "TelegramBot" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /TelegramBot/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for TelegramBot
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_telegrambot {
default 0;
~*TelegramBot 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_telegrambot) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_telegrambot) {
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_telegrambot) {
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 | Optional | Evaluate based on bandwidth usage vs. benefits |
| Blog/News | Allow | Increases content reach and discoverability |
| 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: TelegramBot
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: TelegramBot
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: TelegramBot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
TelegramBot
Robots.txt Name
TelegramBot
Category
social
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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