DotBot/1.2

GoodBotCommunity-sourced

DotBot is the primary web crawler for Moz, responsible for gathering data to build and maintain the Moz Link Index. Operated by Moz.

Operator website ↗

GoodBot

Assessment

SEO

What is DotBot/1.2?

DotBot is the proprietary web crawler operated by Moz, a leading provider of search engine optimization software. It systematically traverses the web to collect link data, which is then processed to power Moz's Link Explorer, the Moz API, and various campaign-level SEO insights. Unlike Moz's other crawler, Rogerbot, which focuses on site-specific audits, DotBot is designed for large-scale discovery to maintain a massive, multi-trillion link index used by marketers to evaluate domain authority and competitive search performance.

Helpful — It is a well-documented, industry-standard crawler used by SEO professionals to analyze backlink profiles and site authority.

Identification

Bot name

DotBot/1.2

Operator

Moz

Why it crawls your site

DotBot crawls the web to populate Moz's comprehensive link index, which serves as the backbone for their SEO analytics tools. By mapping the web's link structure, Moz provides users with data on backlink profiles, site authority, and competitive benchmarking. The crawler respects standard robots.txt directives, allowing site owners to control or restrict its access, and provides a clear contact email for administrative inquiries regarding its activity.

IP ranges

Requests from DotBot/1.2 originate from these published ranges. For strict verification, match the source IP against this list in addition to checking the user-agent and reverse-DNS.

Block or allow DotBot/1.2

Block it

Add a Disallow rule for Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; DotBot/1.2; +https://opensiteexplorer.org/dotbot; [email protected]) in your robots.txt file. You can also block at the server level using your web server configuration or CDN firewall rules to filter requests matching the user-agent string.

# Block DotBot/1.2 from crawling your entire site
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; DotBot/1.2; +https://opensiteexplorer.org/dotbot; [email protected])
Disallow: /

# Allow DotBot/1.2 full access
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; DotBot/1.2; +https://opensiteexplorer.org/dotbot; [email protected])
Allow: /

Allow & verify

Ensure your robots.txt allows Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; DotBot/1.2; +https://opensiteexplorer.org/dotbot; [email protected]). Verify requests by checking the user-agent string.