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If you’ve ever checked your server logs and seen thousands of requests from bots like AhrefsBot, MJ12bot, or
DotBot, you’re not alone. SEO crawler bots from tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and Majestic constantly crawl the web to
build their backlink databases — and your site is almost certainly on their list. While these crawlers serve a
valuable purpose for the SEO industry, many website owners want to block Ahrefs and Moz and
Majestic bots for legitimate reasons.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover exactly how to block these bots using multiple methods — from simple
robots.txt rules to server-level firewall blocks. We’ll also discuss whether blocking these crawlers is actually
in your best interest, and what the potential consequences might be for your SEO strategy.

Why Would You Want To Block SEO Crawlers?

Before jumping into the “how,” let’s understand the “why.” There are several legitimate reasons website owners
want to block these bots:

1. Server Resource Consumption

AhrefsBot is one of the most aggressive crawlers on the internet. It sends hundreds or even thousands of requests
per day to individual websites, consuming significant bandwidth and server resources. For sites on shared
hosting or limited VPS plans, this constant crawling can slow down your site for real visitors, increase server
costs, and even trigger rate limiting from your hosting provider.

2. Competitive Intelligence Protection

Every time Ahrefs, Moz, or Majestic crawls your site, they’re collecting data that your competitors can access.
This includes your backlink profile, page structure, internal linking patterns, and content inventory.
Competitors using these SEO tools
can reverse-engineer your strategy by analyzing this data.

3. Privacy Concerns

Some website owners simply don’t want third-party companies indexing and storing data about their site. This is
particularly relevant for private intranets, staging environments, and sites handling sensitive information.

4. Bandwidth Costs

If you’re paying for bandwidth (CDN costs, cloud hosting egress charges), crawler traffic can add up quickly. A
single aggressive crawler can add gigabytes of unnecessary traffic per month to your bill.

Understanding the Crawler Bots You’re Blocking

Before you start blocking, you need to know exactly which user agents these crawlers use. Here’s a complete
reference:

We’ve included SemrushBot as well since many people searching for how to block Ahrefs and Moz and
Majestic also want to block Semrush. All methods below work for any of these bots.

Method 1: Block Using robots.txt (Simplest Method)

The easiest and most widely-used method is adding rules to your robots.txt file. This file sits in
your site’s root directory and tells well-behaved bots what they can and cannot crawl.

Basic robots.txt Rules

Add the following to your robots.txt file (typically at yourdomain.com/robots.txt):

# Block Ahrefs Bot
User-agent: AhrefsBot
Disallow: /

# Block Majestic Bot (MJ12bot)
User-agent: MJ12bot
Disallow: /

# Block Moz Bots
User-agent: DotBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: rogerbot
Disallow: /

# Block Semrush Bot (optional)
User-agent: SemrushBot
Disallow: /

Pros of robots.txt

• Extremely simple to implement — just a text file edit
• No server configuration needed
• Works on any hosting platform (shared, VPS, dedicated)
• Both Ahrefs and Moz officially confirm they respect robots.txt
• Can be deployed in under 60 seconds

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Cons of robots.txt

• Not enforced — it’s a suggestion, not a command. Rogue bots can ignore it entirely
• Doesn’t save bandwidth — bots still download the robots.txt file
• Historic data already collected by these tools remains accessible
• Some bots may continue crawling with different user agents

Important: Ahrefs, Moz, and Majestic are all well-known companies that respect robots.txt
directives. This method is effective for these specific bots but won’t protect against lesser-known scrapers.

Method 2: Block Using .htaccess (Apache Servers)

If your site runs on Apache (most shared hosting and many VPS setups), you can block these bots at the server
level using .htaccess. This is more effective than robots.txt because the server rejects the
connection before processing any request.

.htaccess Rules

# Block SEO Crawler Bots
RewriteEngine On

# Block AhrefsBot
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} AhrefsBot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

# Block Majestic (MJ12bot)
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} MJ12bot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

# Block Moz bots
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} DotBot [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} rogerbot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

# Block Semrush (optional)
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} SemrushBot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

This returns a 403 Forbidden response to any request from these bots, using minimal server
resources. The [NC] flag makes the match case-insensitive, and [F,L] returns a
forbidden error and stops processing further rules.

Alternative: Using SetEnvIf

An alternative Apache approach using environment variables:

SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "AhrefsBot" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "MJ12bot" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "DotBot" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "rogerbot" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "SemrushBot" bad_bot

<RequireAll>
    Require all granted
    Require not env bad_bot
</RequireAll>

Method 3: Block Using Nginx Server Configuration

If you’re running Nginx (increasingly common for WordPress sites, reverse proxies, and high-traffic setups), add
these rules to your server block:

# Block SEO crawlers in nginx.conf or site config
if ($http_user_agent ~* (AhrefsBot|MJ12bot|DotBot|rogerbot|SemrushBot)) {
    return 403;
}

Place this inside your server { } block, ideally before the location directives. The ~*
operator makes the match case-insensitive. After adding this, reload Nginx:

sudo nginx -t          # Test configuration
sudo systemctl reload nginx  # Apply changes

Advanced Nginx: Block by IP Range

For even stronger blocking, you can deny AhrefsBot’s known IP ranges:

# Block Ahrefs IP range
deny 54.36.0.0/16;

This blocks even if the bot changes its User-Agent string. However, IP ranges can change, so this requires
periodic maintenance.

Method 4: Block Using Cloudflare (Recommended for Most Users)

If your site uses Cloudflare (free or paid plan), you can block these bots through the Cloudflare dashboard
without touching any server configuration. This is the recommended approach for most users because:

• Blocks happen at the CDN edge — zero server load
• Easy to manage through a web interface
• Can be combined with challenge pages or rate limiting
• Works regardless of your hosting setup

Step-by-Step Cloudflare Setup

1. Log into your Cloudflare dashboard
2. Navigate to Security → WAF → Custom Rules
3. Click Create Rule
4. Name it “Block SEO Crawlers”
5. Set the expression:

   (http.user_agent contains "AhrefsBot") or
   (http.user_agent contains "MJ12bot") or
   (http.user_agent contains "DotBot") or
   (http.user_agent contains "rogerbot") or
   (http.user_agent contains "SemrushBot")
   

6. Set action to Block
7. Click Deploy

Cloudflare’s free plan includes 5 custom WAF rules, which is more than enough for this purpose.

Method 5: WordPress Plugin Method

If you run WordPress and want a no-code solution, several plugins can block specific bots:

• Wordfence: Premium security plugin with bot-blocking capabilities. Go to Wordfence →
  Firewall → Blocking → Add blocking rule by User-Agent pattern
• All In One WP Security: Free plugin with a “Blacklist Manager” feature that can block user
  agents
• Blackhole for Bad Bots: Lightweight plugin specifically designed for bot blocking

Note: Plugin-based blocking is the least efficient method because the bot request still hits
your server and WordPress processes it before the block is applied. For high-traffic sites, use server-level or
CDN-level blocking instead.

Method Comparison: Which Approach Is Best?

Should You Actually Block These Bots? Pros vs Cons

Before you rush to block every SEO crawler, consider both sides carefully:

Reasons TO Block

• Server performance: Reduced load, faster page speeds for real visitors
• Bandwidth savings: Less unnecessary traffic = lower hosting bills
• Competitive protection: Competitors can’t easily analyze your site through these tools
• Security posture: Fewer bots = smaller attack surface

Reasons NOT To Block

• Your own SEO data disappears: If you use Ahrefs to analyze YOUR site, blocking AhrefsBot
  means you lose access to your own backlink and traffic data
• You lose visibility: Other people can’t find and link to your content through these tools,
  potentially reducing your organic backlink acquisition
• Domain Authority impact: If Moz can’t crawl your site, your DA score stops updating, which
  may affect how others perceive your site’s authority
• Partial protection only: Historical data already collected remains in these tools’
  databases even after you block the bots

Our recommendation: If you actively use any of these SEO tools (whether
individually or through a group buy), don’t block them. The data they provide about your site
is far more valuable than the bandwidth they consume. Only block if you have specific resource or privacy
concerns.

How To Verify Your Blocks Are Working

After implementing any blocking method, verify that it’s actually working:

1. Check Your Server Logs

# Search for AhrefsBot in Apache logs
grep "AhrefsBot" /var/log/apache2/access.log | tail -20

# Search in Nginx logs
grep "AhrefsBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log | tail -20

After blocking, you should see 403 responses instead of 200 responses for these bots, or no entries at all if
using Cloudflare (since the block happens before reaching your server).

2. Use Online Verification Tools

Several online tools can test whether specific bots can access your site. Try fetching your URL while spoofing
the AhrefsBot user agent — if you get a 403 error, the block is working.

3. Monitor Through Cloudflare Analytics

If using Cloudflare, check Security → Events to see blocked requests from these bots. You’ll see
the exact number of requests blocked, their origin IPs, and the user agent strings used.

What About Blocking Other SEO Crawlers?

While this guide focuses on how to block Ahrefs and Moz and Majestic, you might also want to
block other crawlers. Here are additonal bots to consider:

• SemrushBot — Semrush’s crawler (included in our examples above)
• BLEXBot — WebMeUp’s backlink crawler
• SeznamBot — Czech search engine crawler
• YandexBot — Russian search engine (block if you don’t target Russian markets)
• BaiduSpider — Chinese search engine (block if you don’t target Chinese markets)
• PetalBot — Huawei’s search engine spider

Never block Googlebot, Bingbot, or other major search engine crawlers — doing so would remove
your site from search results entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Will blocking AhrefsBot affect my Google rankings?

No. Blocking Ahrefs, Moz, or Majestic bots has zero impact on Google rankings. These are
third-party crawlers completely independent of Google’s indexing. Googlebot operates separately and isn’t
affected by robots.txt rules targeting other bots.

Does blocking these bots remove existing data from their databases?

No. Historical data already collected by Ahrefs, Moz, and Majestic will remain in their databases even after you
block their crawlers. Blocking only prevents the collection of new data going forward. Over
time (months to years), old data may be purged, but this isn’t guaranteed.

Can Ahrefs bypass my robots.txt block?

Technically yes, but they don’t. Ahrefs is a reputable company that officially respects robots.txt directives.
They even provide a verification page to confirm their crawler’s behavior. For absolute certainty, use
server-level or Cloudflare blocking instead.

Will blocking Moz’s crawler affect my Domain Authority (DA)?

Yes. If DotBot can’t crawl your site, Moz can’t update your Domain Authority score. Your DA will freeze at its
last calculated value and eventually become unreliable. If DA is important for your link-building outreach,
don’t block Moz.

How much bandwidth do these bots actually use?

This varies significantly by site size. A typical blog with 500 pages might see 2-5 GB/month from all SEO
crawlers combined. Large e-commerce sites with hundreds of thousands of pages can see 50-100+ GB/month. Check
your server logs to measure the actual impact on your specific site.

Can I limit crawl rate instead of blocking completely?

Yes! Ahrefs allows you to set a preferred crawl rate through their website verification process. You can reduce
their crawling frequency without blocking entirely. Moz offers similar controls. This is often a better solution
than a complete block.

Should I block SEO crawlers on a new website?

Generally, no. New websites benefit from being crawled because it helps build your presence in SEO tool
databases. When people search for related topics in Ahrefs or Semrush, your site won’t appear in their research
if you’ve blocked the crawlers, reducing potential organic backlink opportunities.

Is there a legal issue with blocking these bots?

No. You have every right to control what bots can access your server. Blocking web crawlers is a standard
practice, and both Ahrefs and Moz explicitly state that website owners can opt out of crawling at any time.
There are no legal implications for blocking any third-party crawler.

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