Amazonbot: what it is, who runs it, and how to allow or block it

Amazonbot is a crawler run by Amazon. It reads pages ahead of time, to train a model or to build an index. Its name in robots.txt, how it shows up in server logs, whether its identity can be checked, and how to allow or refuse it on each platform.

This response

You are ClaudeBot (Anthropic). Citable recognised you as an AI agent, so this is https://getcitable.in/crawlers/amazonbot with the UI removed — the content only. A browser asking for the same address gets the full designed page.

What Amazonbot is

Amazonbot is a crawler run by Amazon. It reads pages ahead of time, to train a model or to build an index.

Should you refuse it?

Amazonbot reads ahead of time. Refusing it keeps your pages out of what Amazon collects them for. It does not change how Google or Bing rank you: search crawlers go by other names, with rules of their own.

robots.txt is a request. A crawler that honours it stays out; nothing in the file stops one that does not. What is enforced is what the server or the edge in front of it refuses.

Is a request really Amazonbot?

Citable holds no published address list for Amazon, so a read that claims to be Amazonbot is recorded as unknown rather than verified. A user agent is a claim, and anyone can send it.

Allowing or refusing Amazonbot in robots.txt

Add a group under its name, “User-agent: Amazonbot”. “Allow: /” lets it read the site and “Disallow: /” refuses it.

A group that names a crawler replaces the * group for that crawler; it does not add to it. Paths the * group closes are open to a crawler with its own group unless they are repeated there.

Refuse Amazonbot:

User-agent: Amazonbot
Disallow: /

Allow Amazonbot:

User-agent: Amazonbot
Allow: /

Where the rule for Amazonbot goes, platform by platform

Also run by Amazon

Questions

What is Amazonbot?

Amazonbot is a crawler run by Amazon. It reads pages ahead of time, to train a model or to build an index.

Who runs Amazonbot?

Amazon. It also reads websites as Amzn-User, AmazonBuyForMe, NovaAct, amazon-QBusiness, Amzn-SearchBot; each has its own name in robots.txt and can be allowed or refused separately.

How do I allow or block Amazonbot in robots.txt?

Add a group under its name, “User-agent: Amazonbot”. “Allow: /” lets it read the site and “Disallow: /” refuses it. A group that names a crawler replaces the * group for that crawler; it does not add to it. Paths the * group closes are open to a crawler with its own group unless they are repeated there.

Should I block Amazonbot?

Amazonbot reads ahead of time. Refusing it keeps your pages out of what Amazon collects them for. It does not change how Google or Bing rank you: search crawlers go by other names, with rules of their own.

How do I see Amazonbot in my server logs?

In an access log Amazonbot appears as a user agent containing “Amazonbot”.

How do I know a request is really Amazonbot?

Citable holds no published address list for Amazon, so a read that claims to be Amazonbot is recorded as unknown rather than verified. A user agent is a claim, and anyone can send it.

About Citable

Citable strips the UI from a website for AI agents and serves them only the content.

When an AI agent — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or any of the 81 that Citable recognises — opens a page, Citable removes the theme, scripts, navigation and layout and serves only the content: the same facts, at the same URL, on the site's own domain. People and Google still get the full designed page.

How it works: https://getcitable.in/how-it-works · Summary for AI agents: https://getcitable.in/llms.txt


Source: https://getcitable.in/crawlers/amazonbot · Citable · Run the free audit · llms.txt · getcitable@gmail.com