Barkrowler

SEO Tool

Last updated:

Allow

Collects analytics data without affecting your rankings.

Recommended action: Allow access. Block only if crawl rate is excessive.

Category

SEO Tool

Primary use case

SEO analytics and backlink data

Trust level

Generally safe

robots.txt

Unknown

Barkrowler Traffic (Last 90 Days)

Avg Share3.81%
Peak9.60%May 2
Total Visits5.5k
Active Days8/90

What is Barkrowler?

SEO Crawler bot

What Barkrowler means for your site

Barkrowler crawls your site to collect data for an SEO analytics platform. This data powers backlink analysis, keyword tracking, and competitive intelligence tools used by SEO professionals. It does not affect your search rankings or site performance in any meaningful way. Its presence simply means your site is being analyzed as part of the broader web.

What should you do?

  • Allow Barkrowler unless crawl rate is excessive
  • Set a crawl-delay in robots.txt if server load is a concern
  • No SEO action needed, this bot is informational only

See Barkrowler on your own site

BotSights tracks every Barkrowler visit in real time, including which pages it crawls, how often, and from where.

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How to identify Barkrowler

Barkrowler uses the user-agent "Barkrowler" and robots.txt compliance unconfirmed. It is one of the most active non-search crawlers on the web.

Barkrowlerbarkrowler

How to block Barkrowler

Three robots.txt options below. Pick the one that matches your goal. Each snippet lists every known Barkrowler user-agent pattern so the rules apply regardless of which one the bot announces. Compliance with robots.txt is unconfirmed for Barkrowler, so verify with crawl logs after deploying.

Edit robots.txt with care

A single misplaced line can de-index your entire site. Common mistake: pasting User-agent: * followed by Disallow: / blocks every bot, not just Barkrowler, including Googlebot. Always paste the snippet between existing rules (not over them), keep the User-agent line scoped to Barkrowler's patterns, and verify with Google's robots.txt tester before deploying. If you are not sure, ask a developer first.

Option 1: Block all access

Tells Barkrowler not to crawl any URL on your site. Use this when you want the bot completely off your content.

User-agent: Barkrowler
User-agent: barkrowler
Disallow: /

Option 2: Block specific paths only

Keep public content crawlable but exclude sensitive or non-public sections. Add one Disallow: line per path. Replace the example paths with your own.

User-agent: Barkrowler
User-agent: barkrowler
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /checkout/

Option 3: Slow down with a crawl delay

Crawl-delay is a voluntary directive that asks the bot to wait the given number of seconds between requests. Useful when Barkrowler is hammering your origin and slowing the site down for real visitors, but you do not want to block it outright. The value is in seconds, so 10 means at most one request every ten seconds. Not all bots honour this directive (Googlebot ignores it; Bingbot, Yandex, and many AI crawlers do respect it).

User-agent: Barkrowler
User-agent: barkrowler
Crawl-delay: 10

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the User-Agent for Barkrowler?

Barkrowler identifies itself with the User-Agent string "Barkrowler" (alternate forms: barkrowler). Use this in robots.txt or firewall rules.

Does Barkrowler affect my Google rankings?

No. Barkrowler collects data for an SEO analytics platform, separate from any search engine's ranking algorithm. Allowing or blocking it has zero SEO impact on Google, Bing, or other search engines.

Should I block Barkrowler?

Usually not. Blocking only prevents your site from appearing in this tool's backlink and SEO database, which means competitors who use the tool cannot analyze your site. Some site owners prefer this for privacy. Most have no reason to block.

How do I block Barkrowler if I want to?

Try robots.txt first ("User-agent: Barkrowler / Disallow: /") and verify with crawl logs that the bot stops appearing.

Why is Barkrowler crawling my site so frequently?

SEO tools tend to re-crawl popular sites often to keep their backlink and ranking data fresh. If the load is excessive, set a Crawl-delay directive in robots.txt: "User-agent: Barkrowler / Crawl-delay: 10" — most respect this.

Is data Barkrowler collects shared with my competitors?

This tool's customers can typically see basic crawl data about any indexed site (backlinks, top pages, keyword visibility). If you do not want this exposed, blocking is the only way to opt out.

Track SEO crawlers visiting your site

See which SEO and link intelligence bots hit your pages, how often they appear, and whether the crawl load is worth allowing.

  • See which pages SEO crawlers hit most
  • Monitor crawl load from non-search bots
  • Decide which crawler access is worth allowing
Track SEO bots

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