Allow or block Poseidon Research Crawler on Apache: robots.txt and a rewrite rule in .htaccess

Add a “User-agent: Poseidon Research Crawler” group with “Disallow: /” to robots.txt, and to enforce it, add a RewriteCond on %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} for Poseidon Research Crawler with a RewriteRule that ends in [F].

This response

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

Poseidon Research Crawler, and where Apache keeps the rule

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

Apache serves robots.txt as a file from the document root. A rewrite rule, in .htaccess or the virtual host, can refuse a request by its user agent.

Step by step

What to paste

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.

robots.txt, refusing Poseidon Research Crawler:

User-agent: Poseidon Research Crawler
Disallow: /

.htaccess, refusing the request itself:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "Poseidon Research Crawler" [NC]
RewriteRule ^ - [F]
</IfModule>

robots.txt, allowing Poseidon Research Crawler:

User-agent: Poseidon Research Crawler
Allow: /

What trips people up

.htaccess is only read where the server’s AllowOverride permits it, and the rule needs mod_rewrite. Inside the IfModule block a missing module fails silently: the rule is simply not applied.

Asked, or actually refused?

Yes. The [F] flag makes Apache answer 403 Forbidden itself.

Check it yourself

A 200 means the name is let through; a 403 means something in front of the page refuses it. This tests the name from your own address. A platform that checks a crawler’s address as well may treat the real Poseidon Research Crawler differently.

The request:

curl -I -A "Poseidon Research Crawler" https://your-site.example/

Questions

How do I block Poseidon Research Crawler on Apache?

Add a “User-agent: Poseidon Research Crawler” group with “Disallow: /” to robots.txt, and to enforce it, add a RewriteCond on %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} for Poseidon Research Crawler with a RewriteRule that ends in [F].

How do I allow Poseidon Research Crawler on Apache?

A crawler that robots.txt does not name follows the * group, so Poseidon Research Crawler needs no rule to be allowed. To allow it by name, add the Allow block.

Can Apache actually stop Poseidon Research Crawler, or only ask it?

Yes. The [F] flag makes Apache answer 403 Forbidden itself.

Does a rule for Poseidon Research Crawler affect Googlebot or my Google rankings?

No. Googlebot goes by its own name and follows its own rules; a group or a firewall rule for Poseidon Research Crawler does not apply to it.

Checked against Apache's own documentation on 1 October 2026

Related

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/poseidon-research-crawler/apache · Citable · Run the free audit · llms.txt · getcitable@gmail.com