Block Ahrefs | Controlling AhrefsBot for Better SEO Security
In case you are worried that competitors are spying on your backlink profile or crawling your site too aggressively, you’ve probably wanted to know how to block Ahrefs. And be honest, who hasn’t? With the number of SEO tools hitting your site on a daily basis, it’s almost reasonable to ask, Should I block their bots?
This blog covers what you need to know in three stages. Understanding the AhrefsBot, there are three choices available to you: block it, don’t block it, or approach it differently. Lastly, learn how to maintain the strength of your website’s performance while maintaining your SEO standing.
What Does It Mean to Block Ahrefs?
Blocking Ahrefs is stopping the Ahrefs crawler that collects backlink and keyword data from accessing your site.
That Ahrefs crawler, also known as the bot, collects and scans billions of pages to build a dataset for their Ahrefs SEO tool. When people talk about blocking Ahrefs, they almost always mean blocking the AhrefsBot or restricting its access.
But that’s the thing about it.
Blocking Ahrefs won’t make your website disappear from the search engines. You will, however, stop Ahrefs users, typically competitors, from seeing your profile.
Is AhrefsBot Good or Bad?
That’s a pretty common question, and the answer is that it depends on your goals.
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Benefits
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Drawbacks
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|---|---|
So, is it good or bad? It is both helpful for research and poses a slight risk to privacy.
Why Do Website Owners Want to Block Ahrefs?
Protect Backlink Data
Competitors are always on the watch for new backlinks. Blocking Ahrefs suffocates your link-building strategies.
Decrease Server Load
Bots crawling too aggressively can slow down websites.
Stop Monitoring
Some webmasters do not want SEO services to scan their websites.
Data Scraping
Using Ahrefs to crawl websites, many consider it a data scraper.
How does Ahrefs Bot work?
Ahrefs sends their crawler to your site like Google does.
What’s the Difference?
Google only crawls your site to index it. Ahrefs collects SEO data for commercial purposes by crawling websites. AhrefsBot obeys requests to stop crawling via:
And this is where the Block Ahrefs bot is applicable, as its behavior is modifiable.
How to Block AhrefsBot Without Hurting Your SEO?
This is something people often forget. Blocking Ahrefs does NOT impact your Google rankings. Google has its own crawler, Googlebot. Ahrefs has nothing to do with the search engines.
Although, if you do happen to block Googlebot by accident while trying to block Ahrefs, then you may lose all of your rankings instantly. To be on the safe side Never block:
Always confirm your user-agent rules.
Would it be advisable to block Ahrefs?
It all depends on you, on your objectives.
| You SHOULD Block Ahrefs | You SHOULD NOT Block Ahrefs |
|---|---|
| You want to stop competitors from spying on your backlinks. | You want SEO tools to keep tracking your site. |
| Your server is getting unnecessary load. | You don’t care about backlink privacy. |
| You want more privacy. | You rely on transparency for partnerships. |
| You use private PBNs. | You want to support a healthier SEO ecosystem. |
| You are running a link-building experiment. |
At FHSEOHub (mentioned once as required), many digital marketers believe that from the SEO standpoint, blocking Ahrefs is a strategic decision, not a necessity.
Does Blocking Ahrefs Affect Your SEO?
Yes, the following will be affected:
- Visibility of backlinks
- Synthesizing reports
- Competitor reports
But the following will NOT be affected:
- Indexing by Google
- Site Ranking
- Visibility in the search results
You merely just remove your data from their database and the eyes of your competitors.
Options for Blocking Ahrefs
If you want privacy but not a full block:
1. Crawl-Rate Limit
You can designate that they can only crawl your site once a week.
2. Area-Specific Blocking
Example:
User-agent: AhrefsBot
Disallow: /private-folder/
3. Redirect the Bot
This is useful for hiding PBNs.
4. Allow Ahrefs, but Track It
You can monitor their activity by checking your server logs.
Effects of Blocking Ahrefs
Here’s what you can expect:
1. Your backlinks that you bought will not show in Ahrefs. Now, competitors can no longer spy on you.
2. Your traffic is not going to drop. Google operates independently.
3. Your server no longer has to be bogged down by AhrefsBot. Your performance might be slightly improved.
4. Users of Ahrefs can no longer see your keyword data. You become “invisible” to their reports.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the decision to block Ahrefs depends on your preferences and SEO strategy. If you block Ahrefs, you reduce the chances of your competitors accessing your backlink profile by preventing traffic; however, if you prefer transparency, it is perfectly acceptable to leave it unblocked.
No matter what decision you make, it is essential to block Ahrefs safely to maintain control over your SEO data, website performance, and visibility to competitors.
FAQs
What’s AhrefsBot?
AhrefsBot is a computer program that is a web spider created by Ahrefs, which is an SEO tool that obtains information on websites, backlinks, and keywords. AhrefsBot navigates the web, generating a comprehensive database for SEO analysis.
Will blocking AhrefsBot have an impact on your SEO?
Blocking AhrefsBot will have no impact on your Google rankings or indexing your site. Conversely, it may stop you from accessing certain SEO tools that analyze competitors, track backlinks, and depend on Ahrefs data.
How to find out if AhrefsBot is visiting your site?
Track your server logs for shortage requests made by AhrefsBot; entries with the user-agent list will let you know if it is visiting your site.
Can you block AhrefsBot with a total block?
Certainly, you’re able to reduce AhrefsBot access to, for instance, once a week. You can set a crawl-rate limit by blocking certain folders that contain documents while allowing access to other documents.
What are some possible disadvantages related to blocking Ahrefs?
While blocking AhrefsBot will be able to protect your data, it also means you won’t be able to obtain data from SEO tools that work off Ahrefs. This will make it more difficult to do competitive analysis and/or strategic planning.
Should I block AhrefsBot, and if so, how?
Blocking AhrefsBot is an SEO strategy. In case you want to safeguard your backlink profile against competition or want to minimize bot traffic, you can block AhrefsBot using robots.txt, .htaccess rules, Cloudflare firewall filters, or NGINX configuration. Blocking Ahrefs, in itself, is not going to help your Google ranking improve either way.
