SERankingBacklinksBot (SE Ranking): what it is and how to allow or block it
Updated · checked against the operator's documentation on
SERankingBacklinksBot is SE Ranking's crawler that collects links for its backlink index. Its robots.txt token is SERankingBacklinksBot.
Facts
- Operator
- SE Ranking
- Category
- SEO tool crawler
- robots.txt token
SERankingBacklinksBot
- Honors robots.txt?
- Reported yes (secondary summary). Reported from a summary of SE Ranking's help page (the page itself was not readable): it always respects robots.txt and uses a default crawl delay of 3 seconds when none is set or robots.txt is not served with status 200.
- User-agent example
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; SERankingBacklinksBot/1.0; +https://seranking.com/backlinks-crawler)
- User agent we logged
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; SERankingBacklinksBot/1.0; +https://seranking.com/backlinks-crawler)Most common variant in our own logs, 110 requests, 19 to 25 Oct 2026. Static snapshot, not the live counter below. A logged string is a claim: anyone can send it.
- Official source
- SE Ranking: SERankingBacklinksBot crawler
- Compared with the source
What it is used for
According to a summary of SE Ranking's help page, it collects only the links from pages and does not read, parse, collect or store other site data.
Crawls the web for a marketing or SEO tool, mostly to build a backlink or site database. It does not decide whether you rank, and blocking it only removes you from that tool's data.
What happens if you block it
Links on your pages stop being captured in SE Ranking's backlink index. Search rankings are not affected. This rests on a secondary summary of SE Ranking's help page.
SE Ranking's help page was behind a challenge page when we checked on 2026-10-25, so the statements above come from a summary of that page, not from a direct read. SE Ranking is reported to name a seranking.com subdomain in reverse DNS and to warn that the user agent can be impersonated.
Is it really SERankingBacklinksBot?
Anyone can send SERankingBacklinksBot as a user agent, so a log line proves nothing by itself. The way to tell is the requesting IP address.
- According to a summary of SE Ranking's help page, the reverse DNS name should be a subdomain of seranking.com.
- Paste any user agent from your logs into the user-agent lookup, or follow the scripts in Fake Googlebots and PHP scanners.
How to allow or block SERankingBacklinksBot
Add one of these groups to the robots.txt at the root of your domain. A group that names the bot overrides a general User-agent: * group.
User-agent: SERankingBacklinksBot Allow: /
User-agent: SERankingBacklinksBot Disallow: /
Does your site allow SERankingBacklinksBot today? The checker evaluates your robots.txt for this and every other bot.Check my site
What we see on our own sites
Live counter, last 30 days: 3 requests on 1 day identified as SERankingBacklinksBot (latest: ). That is a small sample: read it as an example, not as a measurement of the web.
- Content pages: 2
- robots.txt: 1
Counts come from the websites we operate; they hold no IP addresses or URLs, and a user agent is only a claim. See the bot traffic data and the methodology.
Questions about SERankingBacklinksBot
What is SERankingBacklinksBot?
SE Ranking's crawler that collects links for its backlink index. According to a summary of SE Ranking's help page, it collects only the links from pages and does not read, parse, collect or store other site data.
Is SERankingBacklinksBot safe and legitimate?
The real SERankingBacklinksBot is an SEO tool crawler run by SE Ranking. A user-agent string is only a claim, though, so anyone can send it. According to a summary of SE Ranking's help page, the reverse DNS name should be a subdomain of seranking.com.
Does SERankingBacklinksBot obey robots.txt?
Reported yes (secondary summary). Reported from a summary of SE Ranking's help page (the page itself was not readable): it always respects robots.txt and uses a default crawl delay of 3 seconds when none is set or robots.txt is not served with status 200.
How do I block SERankingBacklinksBot?
Robots.txt may not stop it. Reported from a summary of SE Ranking's help page (the page itself was not readable): it always respects robots.txt and uses a default crawl delay of 3 seconds when none is set or robots.txt is not served with status 200. If you add a group anyway, use User-agent: SERankingBacklinksBot followed by Disallow: /.
Will blocking SERankingBacklinksBot hurt my Google rankings or AI visibility?
Not for Google rankings. SEO tool crawlers do not decide whether you rank; blocking one only removes you from that tool's data. Links on your pages stop being captured in SE Ranking's backlink index. Search rankings are not affected. This rests on a secondary summary of SE Ranking's help page.
Related bots
Other SEO tool crawlers
- AhrefsBot AhrefsThe crawler of Ahrefs, a marketing intelligence platform.
- SemrushBot SemrushSemrush's crawler for data behind tools such as Backlink Analytics and Site Audit.
- MJ12bot MajesticMajestic's crawler that maps link relationships between websites for its search engine and backlink index.
- serpstatbot SerpstatSerpstat's crawler that collects links for its backlink database.
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