How to block ImagesiftBot in robots.txt
ImagesiftBot is the crawler associated with ImageSift, a project that indexes images found on the public web. This page gives the robots.txt rule to disallow the ImagesiftBot token and notes that ImageSift documents the crawler and robots.txt support.
What ImagesiftBot is
ImagesiftBot is the crawler behind ImageSift, which collects and indexes images from the public web for an image-search service and associated datasets. Because image datasets are frequently reused for AI training, operators who care about image rights often choose to block it.
ImageSift publishes documentation describing the crawler, its robots.txt token, and how to opt out. Use that documentation rather than guessing the user-agent string.
The rule
To disallow ImagesiftBot site-wide, target its token:
User-agent: ImagesiftBot Disallow: /
The user-agent string contains the ImagesiftBot token plus a self-identifying URL. Match the stable token. If your concern is images specifically, remember that some other crawlers fetch images under their main token, so a complete image policy may require several rules. robots.txt is a request, not enforcement.
- Token: ImagesiftBot
- Project: ImageSift (image indexing and datasets)
- Relevant to image-rights and AI-training concerns
How it appears in analytics and logs
A request carrying the ImagesiftBot token is ImageSift's crawler fetching a page or image. It is a bot event focused on image discovery, not a human visit.
Diagnostic use case
Disallow ImagesiftBot when you do not want your images crawled into the ImageSift index or its associated datasets, which can be used for image search and AI training.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies ImagesiftBot by its token, separate from human analytics, so you can confirm whether a disallow rule reduced its image-focused crawling.
Common mistakes
- Assuming one image-bot rule covers all crawlers that fetch images.
- Misspelling the token — it must be exactly ImagesiftBot.
- Inventing IP ranges instead of confirming the effect in logs.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Blocking ImagesiftBot is a publishing-policy choice in a public file. It involves no visitor data and is not an access-control boundary.
Related pages
- ImagesiftBot — image dataset crawler
ImagesiftBot is an image-focused web crawler associated with ImageSift (linked to Hive). Its robots.txt token is ImagesiftBot. Public documentation is limited in places, so specifics that cannot be confidently sourced are marked partially verified rather than guessed.
- How to block Diffbot in robots.txt
Diffbot operates a crawler that extracts structured data from web pages to build its Knowledge Graph and power data-extraction APIs. This page gives the robots.txt rule to disallow the Diffbot token and notes that Diffbot documents its crawler and robots.txt support.
- max-snippet and preview directives explained
max-snippet, max-image-preview, and max-video-preview are Google robots directives that cap how much of your content appears in result-page previews. This page explains the values each accepts, where to set them, and how they differ from blocking indexing.
- Bot intelligence
See whether an ImagesiftBot disallow changed its activity.
Sources and verification notes
- ImageSift — crawler and opt-out documentationDocuments the ImagesiftBot token and robots.txt opt-out.
Last reviewed 2026-06-24. Facts are checked against primary/official sources where available; uncertain specifics are marked “Data not yet verified” rather than guessed.