Slackbot (Slack): what it is and how to allow or block it
Slackbot is Slack's fetcher that expands links posted in channels into previews. Its robots.txt token is Slackbot.
Facts
- Operator
- Slack
- Category
- Social preview fetcher
- robots.txt token
Slackbot
- Honors robots.txt?
- No, per Slack. Slack does not honor robots.txt; it considers itself not a crawler because it does not follow links and acts for a human.
- User-agent example
Slackbot-LinkExpanding 1.0 (+https://api.slack.com/robots)
- Official source
- Slack: Robots
- Compared with the source
What it is used for
Responds to links users post in channels, fetching part of the page to read oEmbed and Open Graph or Twitter Card tags. Slack also runs Slack-ImgProxy for images and a general Slackbot agent. Fetches a page when someone shares its link, to build the preview card (title, description, image). It acts for the person who shared the link.
What happens if you block it
Slack states: "We do not currently honor robots.txt files." To block Slack embeds you have to contact Slack.
How to allow or block Slackbot
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: Slackbot Allow: /
User-agent: Slackbot Disallow: /
Does your site allow Slackbot today? The checker evaluates your robots.txt for this and every other bot.Check my site
What we see on our own sites
No request identifying as Slackbot has been recorded in the last 30 days, so there is nothing to show yet. We never fill this in with estimates.
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.
Related bots
Other Social preview fetchers
All Social Preview Fetchers · Bot directory · Which bots to allow or block · robots.txt generator · See a page as a bot