What is AlexandriaOrgBot?

AlexandriaOrgBot is a search engine crawler operated by Alexandria.org. It functions as a specialized web crawler designed to index content for Alexandria.org's search engine services. First seen in early 2022, AlexandriaOrgBot systematically browses the web to discover and catalog content that can later be retrieved through Alexandria's search functionality.

The bot identifies itself in server logs with the user agent string Mozilla/5.0 (Linux) (compatible; AlexandriaOrgBot/1.0; +https://www.alexandria.org/bot.html), following standard conventions for crawler identification. This user agent string includes a link to its documentation page where website owners can learn more about its purpose and behavior.

AlexandriaOrgBot exhibits typical search crawler behavior, including variable visitation patterns based on content freshness and site relevance. It generally maintains conservative resource usage with limited concurrent connections to prevent server overload. Unlike AI-powered scrapers, it follows predictable crawling patterns aligned with traditional search engine optimization practices.

Why is AlexandriaOrgBot crawling my site?

AlexandriaOrgBot visits websites to discover and index content that can be included in Alexandria.org's search results. If you're seeing this bot in your logs, it's collecting information about your site's pages to make them findable through their search service.

The crawler's visitation frequency varies based on several factors, including your site's popularity, content update frequency, and overall relevance to Alexandria's search index. Websites with fresh, high-quality content tend to be crawled more frequently, while less active sites may see fewer visits.

This is authorized crawling behavior for a search engine bot, similar to how Google or Bing index the web. AlexandriaOrgBot is designed to respect standard web protocols like robots.txt directives and maintains reasonable crawl rates to avoid overwhelming your server resources.

What is the purpose of AlexandriaOrgBot?

AlexandriaOrgBot supports Alexandria.org's search engine functionality by building and maintaining an index of web content. The data it collects allows Alexandria to provide relevant search results to its users when they query for information.

For website owners, having your content indexed by search crawlers like AlexandriaOrgBot potentially increases your site's visibility and brings in visitors who discover your content through Alexandria's search results. This can be particularly valuable if Alexandria.org serves a niche audience relevant to your content.

The bot operates similarly to mainstream search engine crawlers, focusing on discovering and cataloging web content rather than scraping for commercial purposes or training AI models. Its primary goal is to create a comprehensive, up-to-date index of accessible web content to improve search result quality and relevance.

How do I block AlexandriaOrgBot?

AlexandriaOrgBot respects the standard robots.txt protocol, making it straightforward to control its access to your site. If you wish to block the bot completely, add the following directives to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: AlexandriaOrgBot
Disallow: /

This configuration prevents AlexandriaOrgBot from accessing any part of your website. If you prefer to allow access to certain sections while restricting others, you can use more specific directives:

User-agent: AlexandriaOrgBot
Allow: /public/
Disallow: /private/

You can also implement a crawl delay to limit the rate at which AlexandriaOrgBot accesses your site:

User-agent: AlexandriaOrgBot
Crawl-delay: 5

This sets a 5-second delay between requests, helping to reduce server load. If you're using a sitemap, you can direct the crawler to it for more efficient indexing:

User-agent: AlexandriaOrgBot
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml

Keep in mind that blocking AlexandriaOrgBot will prevent your content from appearing in Alexandria.org's search results, potentially reducing your visibility to users of that platform. For most websites, allowing search engine crawlers provides more benefits than drawbacks, as they help users discover your content.

AlexandriaOrgBot