Yahoo Slurp — Yahoo's web crawler
Slurp is the web crawler historically operated by Yahoo. Modern Yahoo Search blends results from search partners rather than relying solely on its own index, so Slurp's role is narrower than it once was. Its robots.txt token is Slurp; current scope is best confirmed in Yahoo's documentation, so this entry is partially verified.
What this means
Slurp is the crawler name long associated with Yahoo Search. Yahoo's search results have, over much of their history, drawn on partner indexes as well as Yahoo's own crawling, so the presence or absence of heavy Slurp traffic does not by itself determine Yahoo visibility.
Because the search partnerships and the crawler's exact current role have shifted over time, this entry describes the stable token and avoids asserting partnership specifics that cannot be confidently sourced for the present day.
How Slurp identifies itself
Slurp uses the robots.txt user-agent token Slurp. Match on the stable token rather than a full version string. The user agent is a claim and can be copied, so for trust-sensitive decisions rely on Yahoo's published guidance rather than the string alone, and do not invent IP ranges.
- robots.txt token: Slurp
- Yahoo Search has blended partner results over its history
- Current scope: confirm in Yahoo documentation (partially verified)
How it appears in analytics and logs
A request carrying the Slurp token is Yahoo's crawler fetching a URL — a bot event. Because Yahoo Search has blended partner results over its history, Slurp crawling is one input rather than the sole basis of Yahoo visibility.
Diagnostic use case
Recognise Slurp hits in logs as Yahoo crawling rather than human visits, and understand that Yahoo results also draw on search partners.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies Slurp server-side as a search crawler and shows its activity separately from human traffic, so Yahoo-related crawl coverage is visible without log parsing.
Common mistakes
- Assuming Yahoo visibility depends only on Slurp crawling.
- Asserting a current search partnership as fact without sourcing it.
- Counting crawler hits as human visits.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Identification uses only the user agent — no human identity. WebmasterID records Slurp as a bot event, separate from human analytics.
Related pages
- Bingbot — Microsoft Bing's web crawler
Bingbot is the crawler Microsoft Bing uses to discover and index web pages. It uses the bingbot robots.txt token and can be verified through Bing's reverse-DNS method and published IP ranges. Bing also powers results for other surfaces, so Bingbot coverage has reach beyond Bing.com.
- 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
See search-engine crawlers separated from human traffic.
Sources and verification notes
- Yahoo — Search helpYahoo search help; Slurp's current role and any partner blending should be confirmed here.
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.