What AhrefsSiteAudit does
AhrefsSiteAudit is the crawler behind Ahrefs' Site Audit tool, which checks websites for technical and on-page SEO issues. Crawls are triggered by individual Ahrefs users auditing their own sites rather than by a continuous web-wide crawl. It obeys robots.txt disallow rules and crawl-delay by default and limits crawling to a maximum of 30 URLs per minute. Verified site owners can request higher crawl speeds or allow the crawler to check site sections normally disallowed for crawling.
How to control AhrefsSiteAudit
Target AhrefsSiteAudit in your robots.txt with the AhrefsSiteAudit token. Rules apply per bot, so you can allow this one while blocking others, or the reverse.
Allow AhrefsSiteAudit
User-agent: AhrefsSiteAudit
Allow: /Block AhrefsSiteAudit
User-agent: AhrefsSiteAudit
Disallow: /Requests can be verified against Ahrefs' published IP ranges or by reverse DNS (hostnames end in ahrefs.com or ahrefs.net), and verified site owners can authorize the crawler to disobey robots.txt on their own site.
How to identify AhrefsSiteAudit
Temso identifies AhrefsSiteAudittraffic by matching the request's User-Agent header against this pattern. User-agent strings can be spoofed, so treat a match as an indication, not proof.
AhrefsSiteAuditAhrefsSiteAudit FAQ
What is AhrefsSiteAudit?
It is the crawler for Ahrefs' Site Audit tool, which scans websites for technical and on-page SEO issues. Crawls run when an Ahrefs user audits their own website through the platform.
How do I block AhrefsSiteAudit?
Add a robots.txt group with "User-agent: AhrefsSiteAudit" followed by "Disallow: /". Ahrefs notes that verified site owners can allow the crawler to disobey robots.txt on their own site, and that crawl-delay cannot be followed while rendering JavaScript because page assets may be requested simultaneously.
About SEO & Analytics Crawlers
Crawlers behind SEO and marketing-intelligence platforms: backlink databases, site audits, rank tracking, and brand monitoring.
Blocking these has no effect on search or AI visibility. It mainly limits what third-party tools (including your competitors' tools) can see about your site.
