How to block PetalBot in robots.txt
PetalBot is the crawler operated by Huawei to power Petal Search, the search service used on Huawei devices. This page gives the robots.txt rule to disallow the PetalBot token, explains how it identifies itself, and notes that PetalBot documents robots.txt support through Huawei's crawler help pages.
What PetalBot is
PetalBot is the web crawler operated by Huawei for Petal Search, the default search experience on many Huawei devices. If your audience does not include Huawei-device users in markets where Petal Search is relevant, you may choose to disallow it to save crawl-serving resources.
Huawei publishes crawler documentation that describes PetalBot, its robots.txt token, and how to verify it. Treat that documentation as the source of truth rather than guessing the user-agent string.
The rule
To disallow PetalBot site-wide, target its token exactly:
User-agent: PetalBot Disallow: /
PetalBot's user-agent string contains the PetalBot token together with a self-identifying URL pointing at Huawei's crawler help page. Match on the stable token, not a full version string. robots.txt is honoured by compliant crawlers and is not a security boundary.
- Token: PetalBot
- Operator: Huawei (Petal Search)
- User agent contains the PetalBot token plus a Huawei crawler URL
How it appears in analytics and logs
A request carrying the PetalBot token is Huawei's Petal Search crawler fetching a URL. After a disallow, confirm in your logs that PetalBot activity tapers off rather than assuming it stopped instantly.
Diagnostic use case
Disallow PetalBot when you do not want your pages indexed for Petal Search, or when its crawl rate is adding load you would rather not serve to a search engine you do not target.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies PetalBot by its token as a search crawler, separate from human analytics, so you can see whether a disallow rule changed how often it reaches your pages.
Common mistakes
- Misspelling the token — it must be exactly PetalBot.
- Assuming a disallow stops requests instantly rather than over the next crawl cycles.
- Treating robots.txt as access control rather than a request to compliant crawlers.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Blocking PetalBot is a publishing-policy choice expressed in a public file. It involves no visitor data and is not an access-control mechanism.
Related pages
- PetalBot — Huawei Petal Search crawler
PetalBot is the crawler operated for Huawei's Petal Search. It uses the PetalBot robots.txt token and is documented as honouring robots.txt. Petal Search is associated with Huawei devices and services, so PetalBot crawling supports that search experience.
- How to control Baiduspider in robots.txt
Baiduspider is the crawler for Baidu, the dominant search engine in China. You can target it with the Baiduspider token in robots.txt. Blocking it removes you from Baidu over time, which chiefly matters for sites serving Chinese-language or China-based audiences.
- User-agent groups and matching in robots.txt
robots.txt rules are organised into user-agent groups. A crawler does not combine every group — it selects the single most specific group whose token matches its name, falling back to the * group only when no named group matches. Understanding this prevents rules that never apply.
- Bot intelligence
See whether a PetalBot disallow changed its crawl activity.
Sources and verification notes
- Huawei — PetalBot crawler documentationDocuments the PetalBot token, self-identifying URL, and robots.txt support.
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.