AhrefsBot and SemrushBot crawl IPs: verify, allow or block

AhrefsBot crawl IPs are the address ranges Ahrefs uses to crawl the web. You verify one with a reverse DNS lookup that resolves to ahrefs.com, or by matching it against the published IP list. SemrushBot works the same way, and both inflate your analytics if you do not filter them.

SEO crawlers scan billions of pages a day to build the backlink, keyword and competitor data behind tools like Ahrefs and Semrush. They are not threats, and left unmanaged they strain small servers and distort your traffic reports.

This guide covers what these crawl IPs are, how to confirm a crawler is genuine, whether to allow or block it, and how to keep crawler traffic out of the numbers you make decisions with.

What is AhrefsBot, and how does it affect your site?

AhrefsBot is a web crawler in the same category as Googlebot or Bingbot. When it visits, it records:

• The structure of your pages
• Links pointing to and from your site
• Keywords and content
• Technical signals such as meta tags and robots.txt rules

That data feeds Ahrefs' index, which powers Site Explorer for backlink profiles, Keywords Explorer for research, Site Audit for technical health, and Content Explorer for finding top-performing pages.

What are AhrefsBot crawl IPs?

Every bot operates from an IP address, the identifier that tells your server where a request came from. Ahrefs uses ranges assigned exclusively to it, so the IP is how you confirm a request genuinely came from Ahrefs rather than from something using its name.

Why do crawler IPs matter?

Server load

Aggressive crawling can slow a site on a small hosting plan. Identifying the IPs lets you throttle rather than guess.

Impostors

Not everything claiming to be AhrefsBot is AhrefsBot. Scrapers routinely copy the user agent of a reputable crawler because most sites do not check. The IP is the part they cannot fake.

Analytics accuracy

Crawlers appear in logs and inflate visit counts. Without filtering, you are reading a mix of human sessions and automated requests as though they were the same thing.

SEO visibility

If you monitor your own backlink profile in Ahrefs, the bot needs to crawl freely for the data to be current.

How to verify a crawler is genuine

Reverse DNS lookup

Run a reverse DNS lookup on the IP. A real AhrefsBot request resolves to a hostname ending in ahrefs.com. A real SemrushBot request resolves to semrush.com. Anything else is using the name without permission.

The official IP list

Both companies publish their crawler IP ranges. Matching against the published list is the definitive check, and you can whitelist or block those ranges in your firewall once you have them.

Checking the user agent alone is not verification. It is a string the client chooses, and a scraper will send whatever gets it through.

What about SemrushBot?

SemrushBot does the same job for Semrush that AhrefsBot does for Ahrefs. It crawls content, follows backlinks, records keyword usage and feeds the results into Semrush's index, which powers its keyword research, competitor analysis and site audit tools.

The practical differences are minor and the management approach is identical:

• It identifies itself by user agent and operates from published IP ranges.
• It respects robots.txt directives, including crawl-delay.
• It shows up in analytics as traffic unless you filter it out.
• Blocking it removes your site from Semrush's data, which affects what you and everyone else can see about your backlink profile.

Treat both as one policy decision rather than two. If you are filtering SEO crawlers from your reporting, filter all of them, including Moz, Majestic and the rest.

Should you allow or block SEO crawlers?

Reasons to allow

• Your own visibility. Your backlinks, rankings and content only appear in these tools if their crawlers can reach you.
• Accurate third-party research. Competitors, partners, journalists and investors research you through exactly these platforms. Blocking the crawler does not hide you, it just makes the data about you wrong.
• No ranking penalty. Blocking AhrefsBot or SemrushBot has no direct effect on your Google rankings, since neither is Googlebot.

Reasons to block

• Server strain. On constrained hosting, heavy crawling is a real cost.
• Competitive privacy. Blocking obscures part of your backlink profile and content from competitor research, though only partially, since links from other sites remain visible.
• Policy. Some organisations restrict all third-party crawlers as a matter of data control.

Most businesses allow them, and throttling is usually the better answer to a load problem than blocking.

How to control crawler access

1. robots.txt directives. Restrict crawlers to the sections worth crawling, and set a crawl-delay if frequency is the problem. Both AhrefsBot and SemrushBot honour it.
2. The X-Robots-Tag header. Communicates crawl and index directives at the HTTP level, useful for non-HTML resources.
3. Firewall rules on IP ranges. Effective and high-maintenance, because the published ranges change and your rules will silently go stale.
4. User-agent blocking. Simple to configure at the server, and it only stops crawlers that identify themselves honestly. The ones you most want to stop do not.
5. Challenges and authentication. A CAPTCHA or login wall deters automation broadly, at the cost of deterring people too.

One consequence worth stating plainly: if you block a crawler, that tool's data about your site goes stale. Semrush and Ahrefs will keep reporting on you using whatever they last collected, and you lose the ability to audit your own site through them.

How crawler traffic distorts your analytics

Crawlers visit constantly, and every visit can register as a session. Left unfiltered, that produces inflated visitor counts, a bounce rate that reflects machine behaviour rather than human behaviour, and session durations that mean nothing.

The fix for declared crawlers is straightforward. Exclude the known IP ranges in your analytics filters, keep the lists updated, and review server logs periodically to see who is actually visiting.

The harder problem is everything that does not declare itself. AhrefsBot and SemrushBot are the easy case precisely because they publish their IPs and respect robots.txt. Most automated traffic does neither. Scrapers spoof the user agent of legitimate crawlers, run through residential proxies so the IP looks like a consumer connection, and use headless browsers that execute JavaScript exactly like a real visitor.

That traffic cannot be filtered from a list, and it matters more than a crawler skewing your pageview count. When it reaches paid campaigns it is spending budget, entering remarketing audiences and training automated bidding. Identifying it takes behavioural analysis rather than an IP lookup, which is what bot detection does. For advertising specifically, click fraud protection blocks the sources before the click is charged, and bot traffic covers where it originates.

Best practices

• Use official sources. Only trust IP lists published by Ahrefs and Semrush themselves.
• Throttle before blocking. Crawl-delay solves most load problems without losing the data.
• Refresh your lists. IP ranges change, and stale rules fail silently in both directions.
• Filter analytics, do not block. Excluding crawler IPs from reports gets you clean numbers while keeping your SEO visibility.
• Read your server logs. Crawl frequency and impostor activity are both visible there and nowhere else.
• Write the policy down. Decide once whether you allow, throttle or block third-party crawlers, and apply it consistently.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Ahrefs crawl bot?

AhrefsBot is a web crawler that scans websites and collects the backlink, keyword and technical data behind Ahrefs' SEO tools. It works the way Googlebot does, except it feeds a commercial SEO index rather than a search engine.

How do I verify an AhrefsBot crawl IP is genuine?

Run a reverse DNS lookup on the IP. A genuine request resolves to a hostname ending in ahrefs.com. You can also match the IP against the crawler ranges Ahrefs publishes. Checking the user agent alone proves nothing, because any client can send any user agent string.

Can I block AhrefsBot or SemrushBot?

Yes, through robots.txt, a firewall rule on the published IP ranges, or .htaccess. Blocking has no effect on your Google rankings, and it does stop that tool collecting current data about your site, so its reports on you go stale.

Do SEO crawlers affect my analytics?

Yes. Crawler visits register as sessions unless filtered, which inflates visitor counts and distorts bounce rate and session duration. Exclude the published IP ranges in your analytics filters rather than blocking the crawlers outright.

Is SemrushBot different from AhrefsBot?

Only in which index it feeds. Both identify themselves by user agent, operate from published IP ranges, respect robots.txt including crawl-delay, and appear in analytics unless filtered. Manage them under one policy.

Managing crawlers is an informed choice, not a defence

AhrefsBot and SemrushBot crawl IPs are simply the addresses used by two well-behaved SEO crawlers. Whether you allow, throttle or block them comes down to visibility against privacy and speed against control, and for most businesses the visibility is worth more.

What deserves your attention is the traffic that does not announce itself. A declared crawler you can filter in an afternoon. Undeclared automation is the one costing you money, and it will not appear on any published IP list.