What is Baiduspider?

Baiduspider is a bot in the search engine crawlers category, operated by Baidu.

Bot name
Baiduspider
Operator
Baidu
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Yes
robots.txt user agent
Baiduspider
Main crawl location
China (78%)
Reverse DNS
*.baidu.com
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About Baiduspider

Baiduspider is the search engine crawler for the search engine Baidu.

Search engine crawlers index your pages so they can appear in search results. Keep the genuine ones allowed and verify them, because fake search crawlers are one of the most common disguises for scrapers.

Baiduspider user agent

Sample user agent strings sent by Baiduspider:

  • Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Baiduspider-render/2.0; +http://www.baidu.com/search/spider.html)
  • Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 9_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/601.1.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/9.0 Mobile/13B143 Safari/601.1 (compatible; Baiduspider-render/2.0; +http://www.baidu.com/search/spider.html)

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.

Where Baiduspider crawls from

Share of Baiduspider requests to sites protected by Transfon Security in the 7 days to 27 October 2026.

Countries

China78%
United States12%
The Netherlands2%
Canada1%
Singapore1%
Belgium1%

Networks

CHINA UNICOM China169 Backbone AS483756%
IDC, China Telecommunications Corporation AS2372422%
Google LLC AS39698221%

How to verify Baiduspider

Genuine Baiduspider IPs resolve to hostnames ending in baidu.com. Run a reverse DNS lookup on the IP, then a forward lookup on the hostname, and check both match:

host 203.0.113.10          # the IP from your logs
host crawl-name.baidu.com  # must return the same IP

How to block Baiduspider in robots.txt

Baiduspider follows robots.txt, so these rules stop it crawling the paths you choose. robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of your domain, such as https://example.com/robots.txt.

Block Baiduspider from the whole site

User-agent: Baiduspider
Disallow: /

Block Baiduspider from some folders

User-agent: Baiduspider
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /search

Allow Baiduspider only on some folders

User-agent: Baiduspider
Allow: /blog/
Disallow: /

Allow Baiduspider and block other crawlers

User-agent: Baiduspider
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: Baiduspider group, Baiduspider ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.
  • The user agent name is not case sensitive. We take Baiduspider from Baiduspider's user agent; check Baidu'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. Baiduspider may not follow the rule. Baiduspider says it follows robots.txt, but nothing enforces that. Changes can take a day to apply, the operator can change its policy, and other crawlers from Baidu use different names and rules.
  2. The user agent could be fake. robots.txt matches the name a request claims. Anyone can send Baiduspider's user agent, and a scraper using it is not bound by Baidu's robots.txt policy. Only checking the source network tells a real Baiduspider from a fake one: genuine requests resolve to *.baidu.com.

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

Who should care about Baiduspider

Publishers

Baiduspider brings search traffic, so keep the real one allowed. Fake Baiduspider requests are a common cover for scrapers, so verify it by network rather than by name.

Transfon Security for publishers

Media buyers and advertisers

Search crawlers fetch landing pages to check them. Keep Baiduspider allowed, but out of campaign and conversion data.

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

Baiduspider indexes products for search results. Allow it, and block impersonators that use its name to scrape prices.

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

Allow Baiduspider on marketing and docs pages, and keep it off signed-in app pages it cannot use.

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block Baiduspider with Transfon Security

robots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows Baiduspider 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 Baiduspider on your site

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Baiduspider?

Baiduspider is a bot in the search engine crawlers category, operated by Baidu. Baiduspider is the search engine crawler for the search engine Baidu.

Does Baiduspider respect robots.txt?

Yes. Baiduspider follows robots.txt, so a Disallow rule for the Baiduspider user agent stops it from crawling the paths you list.

How do I block Baiduspider?

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

Is robots.txt enough to block Baiduspider?

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

How do I verify a real Baiduspider request?

Run a reverse DNS lookup on the IP. Genuine Baiduspider IPs resolve to a hostname ending in baidu.com, and a forward lookup of that hostname returns the same IP. Anything else using its user agent is an impersonator.

Should I block Baiduspider?

Search engine crawlers index your pages so they can appear in search results. Keep the genuine ones allowed and verify them, because fake search crawlers are one of the most common disguises for scrapers.

Related bots

All search engine crawlers · Full bot directory

See Which Bots Visit Your Site

Transfon Security identifies every bot in this directory in your traffic reports, flags fake search crawlers, and lets you allow, block or rate limit each bot.

Stay ahead of the publishing curve

Privacy, security, monetization, and performance insights. A few emails a month, no spam.

By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy.