Bytespider
Bytespider is a bot operated by ByteDance that collects pages used to train AI models. Downloads data to train LLMS, including ChatGPT competitors. No IP range list or reverse-DNS convention is published, so a request carrying this user agent cannot be proven genuine and a robots.txt rule alone will not stop a forgery.
Bytespider at a glance
| User agent | BytespiderToken only. The operator has not published a full user-agent string, so match on the substring rather than an exact header. |
|---|---|
| Operator | ByteDance |
| Purpose | LLM training. |
| Respects robots.txt | No |
| Verification method | None published, user agent only ByteDance publishes no IP ranges and no reverse-DNS convention for Bytespider, and it has been widely reported crawling aggressively from addresses that do not resolve back to ByteDance. Rate limiting is more reliable than a robots.txt rule. |
| Crawl pattern | Not published |
| Robots.txt tokens | Bytespider |
| Operator documentation | None published |
Downloads data to train LLMS, including ChatGPT competitors.
Allow or block Bytespider
Paste one of these into the robots.txt file at the root of your domain. Rules are per token, so a block on one crawler leaves every other bot untouched. Bytespider is documented as ignoring robots.txt, so treat the block below as a statement of intent and enforce it at your CDN.
User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /Blocks every path for this crawler only.
User-agent: Bytespider
Allow: /Explicit allow. Useful when a wildcard rule above it would otherwise catch this crawler.
User-agent: Bytespider
Allow: /
Disallow: /account/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /searchEdit the Disallow paths to match your own account, checkout and search URLs.
What blocking actually costs you
Blocking Bytespider keeps your pages out of the next training run. It does not remove anything already collected, and it has no effect on how the site ranks in ordinary search.
Block every crawler in the directory at onceIs that really Bytespider?
A user-agent header is a string the client chooses. Scrapers copy Bytespider precisely because site owners allow it. ByteDance publishes no IP ranges and no reverse-DNS convention for Bytespider, and it has been widely reported crawling aggressively from addresses that do not resolve back to ByteDance. Rate limiting is more reliable than a robots.txt rule.
Paste the IP address from your access log below. You will see whether it belongs to a hosting provider, a residential proxy pool or a Tor exit, plus the ASN that announces it, which is what tells you whether the claim holds up.
Other crawlers run by ByteDance
Related crawlers
Identify crawlers automatically instead of by hand
Agentscan checks a request against published crawler ranges, reverse DNS and hosting data, then returns a verdict your edge can act on. One call per request, no range files to keep up to date.