What is CoveoBot?

CoveoBot is a bot in the search engine crawlers category, operated by Coveo.

Bot name
CoveoBot
Operator
Coveo
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
Coveobot
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About CoveoBot

Coveo provide services to website, customer service and commerce solutions so they can feature relevant experiences to their end users; said services are based on a unified index which crawls websites when configured so by our customers.

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.

CoveoBot user agent

CoveoBot identifies itself with this user agent string:

  • Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) (compatible; Coveobot/2.0;+http://www.coveo.com/bot.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.

How to block CoveoBot in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether CoveoBot 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 CoveoBot from the whole site

User-agent: Coveobot
Disallow: /

Block CoveoBot from some folders

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

Allow CoveoBot only on some folders

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

Allow CoveoBot and block other crawlers

User-agent: Coveobot
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: Coveobot group, CoveoBot ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.
  • The user agent name is not case sensitive. We take Coveobot from CoveoBot's user agent; check Coveo'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. CoveoBot may not follow the rule. robots.txt is a request that nothing enforces, and we have not confirmed that CoveoBot 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 CoveoBot's user agent, and a scraper using it is not bound by Coveo's robots.txt policy. Only checking the source network tells a real CoveoBot from a fake one.

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

Who should care about CoveoBot

Publishers

CoveoBot brings search traffic, so keep the real one allowed. Fake CoveoBot 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 CoveoBot allowed, but out of campaign and conversion data.

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

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

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block CoveoBot with Transfon Security

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

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

Frequently asked questions

What is CoveoBot?

CoveoBot is a bot in the search engine crawlers category, operated by Coveo. Coveo provide services to website, customer service and commerce solutions so they can feature relevant experiences to their end users; said services are based on a unified index which crawls websites when configured so by our customers.

Does CoveoBot respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether CoveoBot 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 CoveoBot?

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

Is robots.txt enough to block CoveoBot?

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

Should I block CoveoBot?

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.