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.
What this means
Exalead was a search engine of French origin that maintained its own web index and was known in the European search landscape. ExaBot was the crawler it used to discover and fetch public pages for that index.
Exalead's general consumer web search has wound down over the years as the major engines consolidated the market. As a result, ExaBot is best understood today as a legacy regional search crawler rather than a current mainstream engine.
How it identifies itself
ExaBot used the ExaBot user-agent token to identify Exalead's crawler. Match on the documented token rather than an exact version string. As with any user-agent, the string is a claim and can be copied, so corroborate where authenticity matters.
Because Exalead's web search has wound down and current documentation is sparse, this entry is marked partially verified: the ExaBot token and its Exalead association are documented historically, but current activity and IP ranges are not actively published.
- robots.txt token: ExaBot
- Operator: Exalead, a French-origin search engine
- Status today: largely legacy / residual
robots.txt considerations
To control ExaBot, target the ExaBot token in robots.txt. Given its legacy status, this is mostly relevant for cleaning up historic crawl noise rather than managing an active major engine.
robots.txt is honoured by compliant crawlers and is a request, not an access control. It cannot stop a non-compliant client that merely copies the ExaBot user-agent.
How it appears in analytics and logs
An ExaBot request is (or was) Exalead's search crawler fetching a page. In modern logs it usually indicates legacy or residual crawling rather than an active major search engine; treat it as bot traffic.
Diagnostic use case
Recognise the historic ExaBot token in legacy logs, understand it as a European search crawler rather than an active major engine, and set robots.txt policy if needed.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies the ExaBot token server-side as a search crawler and surfaces its activity, so even legacy or regional crawling is visible without log parsing.
Common mistakes
- Assuming ExaBot is a current major search engine driving meaningful traffic.
- Treating a copied ExaBot user-agent as proof of Exalead 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Web crawlers
How regional and legacy search crawlers are detected and categorised.
Sources and verification notes
- Exalead — historic search engineExaBot crawler associated with Exalead; consumer web search wound down, current crawl activity not actively 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.