Cliqz search crawler
Cliqz was a German privacy-focused search engine and browser project that built its own search index rather than relying on the major engines. Its crawler fetched public pages for that index. The Cliqz project was discontinued, so its crawler is a legacy token: you may see it in historic logs, associated with the Cliqz identity.
What this means
Cliqz was a European, privacy-oriented project that combined a browser with its own search engine, aiming to build an independent index instead of depending on Google or Bing. Building that index required its own crawler to fetch public pages.
The Cliqz project was discontinued, so its crawler is a legacy artifact today. Seeing it in logs reflects historic crawling rather than an active engine.
How it identifies itself
Cliqz crawling was associated with the Cliqz identity in the user-agent. Match on the documented token pattern rather than an exact version. As with any user-agent, it can be copied, so corroborate where authenticity matters.
Because the project was discontinued and documentation is sparse, this entry is marked partially verified: the crawler's existence and Cliqz association are documented historically, but current activity and IP ranges are not published.
- Operator: Cliqz, a privacy-focused search/browser project
- Built an independent search index
- Status today: discontinued / legacy
How it appears in analytics and logs
A Cliqz crawler request was the project's bot fetching a page for its independent index. In modern logs it indicates legacy activity, since the project was discontinued; treat it as bot traffic.
Diagnostic use case
Recognise the historic Cliqz crawler in legacy logs, understand it as a discontinued privacy-search project's crawler, and set robots.txt policy if needed.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies the Cliqz crawler token server-side as a search crawler and surfaces its activity, so legacy privacy-search crawling stays visible.
Common mistakes
- Assuming Cliqz is an active engine driving traffic.
- Treating a copied user-agent as proof of Cliqz origin.
- Counting legacy crawl hits as human visits.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Identification uses only the request user-agent. No visitor identity is involved. WebmasterID records the crawl as a bot event, separate from human analytics.
Related pages
- ExaBot (Exalead) crawler
ExaBot is the crawler associated with Exalead, a French-origin web search engine that built its own index. ExaBot fetched public pages to populate Exalead's search results. Exalead's consumer web search has long since wound down, so ExaBot is largely a legacy token: you may still see it in historic logs or from residual crawling, identified by the ExaBot user-agent.
- Gigablast crawler (GigaBot)
Gigablast was an independent search engine, known for running its own web index and open-sourcing parts of its technology. Its crawler (associated with the GigaBot identity) fetched public pages to build that index. Gigablast's public search has wound down, so its crawler is largely a legacy token seen in historic logs rather than an active mainstream engine.
- Regional search engines overview
In several markets a regional search engine leads instead of Google: Yandex in Russian-language search, Baidu in China, Naver in South Korea, Seznam in the Czech Republic, and Coc Coc in Vietnam. Recognising their crawlers matters because being indexed by them is how you reach those audiences.
- Bot intelligence
Deterministic categorisation of search crawlers and automation.
Sources and verification notes
- Cliqz — privacy search projectDiscontinued privacy-focused search/browser with an independent index; current crawl activity not published.
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.