What is AmazonKendra?

AmazonKendra is a bot in the AI crawlers category, operated by Amazon.

Bot name
AmazonKendra
Operator
Amazon
Category
AI Crawlers
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
amazon-kendra
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About AmazonKendra

Amazon Kendra is a highly accurate intelligent search service that enables your users to search unstructured data using natural language. It returns specific answers to questions, giving users an experience that's close to interacting with a human expert. It is highly scalable and capable of meeting performance demands, tightly integrated with other AWS services such as Amazon S3 and Amazon Lex, and offers enterprise-grade security.

AI crawlers collect web pages in bulk to build training data for large language models and other AI systems. They take content without sending visitors back. Most publishers block them in robots.txt or at the WAF unless they have a licensing deal with the operator.

AmazonKendra user agent

Sample user agent strings sent by AmazonKendra:

  • amazon-kendra-customer-id-[id]
  • amazon-kendra-web-crawler-*

Anyone can copy a user agent string. Transfon Security also checks where each request comes from, so a request that claims to be a known crawler but comes from the wrong network is treated as a fake, not as the real crawler.

How to block AmazonKendra in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether AmazonKendra follows robots.txt. Add a rule, then check your logs to see that it stopped. robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of your domain, such as https://example.com/robots.txt.

Block AmazonKendra from the whole site

User-agent: amazon-kendra
Disallow: /

Block AmazonKendra from some folders

User-agent: amazon-kendra
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /search

Allow AmazonKendra only on some folders

User-agent: amazon-kendra
Allow: /blog/
Disallow: /

Allow AmazonKendra and block other crawlers

User-agent: amazon-kendra
Allow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Things to know

  • Each host needs its own file. Rules on www.example.com do not apply to shop.example.com.
  • A crawler obeys only the most specific group that names it. Once you add a User-agent: amazon-kendra group, AmazonKendra ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.
  • The user agent name is not case sensitive. We take amazon-kendra from AmazonKendra's user agent; check Amazon's own documentation if it publishes a different robots.txt name.
  • Crawlers cache robots.txt, so changes can take up to a day to apply. Disallow stops crawling but does not remove pages already collected or indexed.

Limits of robots.txt

  1. AmazonKendra may not follow the rule. robots.txt is a request that nothing enforces, and we have not confirmed that AmazonKendra follows it. Check your logs after adding a rule.
  2. The user agent could be fake. robots.txt matches the name a request claims. Anyone can send AmazonKendra's user agent, and a scraper using it is not bound by Amazon's robots.txt policy. Only checking the source network tells a real AmazonKendra from a fake one.

Treat robots.txt as a statement of your policy, and enforce it where requests arrive.

Who should care about AmazonKendra

Publishers

AmazonKendra takes articles for AI training without sending readers back, and its page loads count as invalid traffic if your ad tags fire. Decide whether to license, limit or block it, and keep it out of ad requests.

Transfon Security for publishers

Media buyers and advertisers

Visits from AmazonKendra to your landing pages are not people. Keep them out of conversion, retargeting and audience data so you do not pay to reach a crawler.

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

AmazonKendra can copy product descriptions, prices and reviews in bulk. Allow it on pages you want AI models to know about and block it on search, cart and account pages.

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

AmazonKendra can fetch documentation and public app pages at scale. Rate limit it so it does not slow the product for paying users.

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block AmazonKendra with Transfon Security

robots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows AmazonKendra by name in the Top Bots report, so you can see how often it visits and which pages it reads. Block or allow it with a User Agent rule, or slow it down with a rate limit decision rule.

Transfon Security

Control AmazonKendra on your site

  • See every AmazonKendra visit and the pages it reads
  • Spot bots that fake trusted crawler names
  • Block, allow or rate limit AmazonKendra with one rule
  • Works with or without robots.txt support

Frequently asked questions

What is AmazonKendra?

AmazonKendra is a bot in the AI crawlers category, operated by Amazon. Amazon Kendra is a highly accurate intelligent search service that enables your users to search unstructured data using natural language. It returns specific answers to questions, giving users an experience that's close to interacting with a human expert. It is highly scalable and capable of meeting performance demands, tightly integrated with other AWS services such as Amazon S3 and Amazon Lex, and offers enterprise-grade security.

Does AmazonKendra respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether AmazonKendra follows robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule, then check your logs to see that it stopped, and block it by user agent if it did not.

How do I block AmazonKendra?

Add "User-agent: amazon-kendra" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. To enforce it, block requests whose user agent contains "amazon-kendra-" at your WAF. In Transfon Security that is one User Agent block rule.

Is robots.txt enough to block AmazonKendra?

No. robots.txt is voluntary, so AmazonKendra may not follow it, and anyone can send AmazonKendra's user agent, so a fake AmazonKendra ignores your rule. Enforce the rule where requests arrive, at your WAF, and check the source network.

Should I block AmazonKendra?

AI crawlers collect web pages in bulk to build training data for large language models and other AI systems. They take content without sending visitors back. Most publishers block them in robots.txt or at the WAF unless they have a licensing deal with the operator.

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