AI search · DuckDuckGo
DuckAssistBot
Fetches pages to generate DuckAssist answers in DuckDuckGo search. DuckDuckGo states it is not used to train AI models.
- Operator
- DuckDuckGo
- Purpose
- AI search indexers
- Feeds
- DuckDuckGo AI
- robots.txt token
DuckAssistBot- Honours robots.txt
- Honours robots.txt
- Documentation
- duckduckgo.com
What it looks like in server logs
A representative user-agent string. Version numbers change; the DuckAssistBot token does not. Paste your own log line into the user-agent checker to confirm a match.
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; DuckAssistBot/1.0; +http://duckduckgo.com/duckassistbot.html)How to block DuckAssistBot
Add this to the robots.txt at the root of your domain. Robots.txt is advisory: it works only on crawlers that choose to read it. This one is honours robots.txt according to its operator.
User-agent: DuckAssistBot
Disallow: /
To block every ai search indexer at once, or to block training while keeping AI search citations, use the robots.txt generator.
How to allow DuckAssistBot while blocking others
A more specific User-agent group wins over a wildcard. Place this above any User-agent: * block that disallows paths, and DuckAssistBot keeps full access.
User-agent: DuckAssistBot
Allow: /
How to verify a genuine hit
The user-agent string is self-asserted: anyone can send it from a laptop, and scrapers routinely impersonate well-known crawlers to slip past filters aimed at unknown ones.
DuckDuckGo publishes the IP addresses its bots use.