YouBot is the web crawler of the You.com search engine. This entry is about the bot, not about the KUKA youBot research robot or other products with the same name. YouBot discovers and indexes web pages, and You.com uses that index for its search results.
At a glance
- Operator
- You.com
- Purpose
- Search (discovering and indexing pages)
- robots.txt token
YouBot- Respects robots.txt
- yes, including
Crawl-delay; robots.txt is cached for 30 minutes - IP list
- IP range
68.67.112.0/24 - Docs
- You.com: YouBot
Last checked:
How does YouBot work?
You.com describes YouBot as a crawler that automatically discovers and indexes pages. Its user agent contains YouBot/1.0 and the token env:prod. According to You.com, legitimate requests come from the IP range 68.67.112.0/24. For crawling problems the documentation lists the contact address spider@you.com.
Because the user agent and the IP range are published, you can check a log entry against both. A request that claims to be YouBot but comes from another range does not match the documentation.
| Bot | Operator | Purpose | robots.txt token | robots.txt according to the operator | IP list published? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google-Extended | Controls Gemini training and grounding (no crawler of its own) | Google-Extended | robots.txt token only; fetching is done by existing Google crawlers | n/a (no user agent of its own) | |
| GPTBot | OpenAI | Training | GPTBot | Disallowing it signals content should not be used to train foundation models | yes (openai.) |
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | Search (ChatGPT) | OAI-SearchBot | opted-out sites are not shown in ChatGPT search answers | yes (openai.) |
| ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | User-triggered fetch | ChatGPT-User | robots.txt rules may not apply, says OpenAI (user-initiated) | yes (openai.) |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | Training | ClaudeBot | yes, Anthropic says its bots honor robots.txt | yes (claude.) |
| Claude-SearchBot | Anthropic | Search (Claude) | Claude-SearchBot | yes, Anthropic says its bots honor robots.txt | yes (claude.) |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | Search (Perplexity), not used for model training | PerplexityBot | controllable via robots.txt; the docs contain no explicit compliance statement | yes (perplexity.) |
| Applebot-Extended | Apple | Controls AI training (does not crawl, says Apple) | Applebot-Extended | robots.txt token only, applies to content Applebot already crawled | n/a (no crawler of its own) |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | Open web crawl archive | CCBot | can be blocked via robots.txt, says Common Crawl | yes (index.) |
| Meta-ExternalAgent | Meta | Training foundation AI models, improving products | meta-externalagent | can be blocked via robots.txt, says Meta | not stated by the operator |
A selection of ten AI bots from major operators, not a complete list. All values come from each operator's own documentation (as of 8 October 2026). The table does not show whether a bot actually complies with robots.txt; it only reflects what operators state. User agents can be spoofed; published IP lists or reverse DNS identify genuine requests. Sources: OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI Crawlers; Anthropic: Does Anthropic crawl data from the web, and how can site owners block the crawler? (updated 2026-04-07); Perplexity: Perplexity Crawlers; Google: Google's common crawlers (last updated 2026-07-14); Google: Overview of Google crawlers and fetchers (last updated 2026-06-12); Google: Verifying Google crawlers and fetchers (IP range files); Apple: About Applebot (2026-09-04); Meta: Meta Web Crawlers; Common Crawl: CCBot. Last checked: .
How can you control YouBot?
You.com states that YouBot respects robots.txt rules for its user agent, including crawl-delay. It caches the robots.txt file for 30 minutes, so a change can take up to half an hour to take effect.
Example
User-agent: YouBot
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /internal/
The rule sets a Crawl-delay of 10 for the crawler and excludes the /internal/ directory.
Common mistakes
- Expecting changes right away. According to You.com, YouBot caches robots.txt for 30 minutes, so a change can take up to half an hour.
- Trusting every request that uses the YouBot name. You.com names the IP range
68.67.112.0/24and reverse DNS names following the patternyoubot-<IP>.search.you.com. A request that claims to be YouBot but comes from elsewhere does not match the documentation.
FAQ
Is YouBot an AI crawler? YouBot feeds the You.com search engine. You.com also offers AI-generated answers, but the documentation describes the crawler’s purpose as search and makes no statement about model training.
How fast does a robots.txt change apply? According to You.com, within 30 minutes at most.
Sources
Last updated: