Kimi-User: what it is and how to block or allow it

What Kimi-User does

Kimi-User fetches pages when a Kimi user does something that needs live web content, such as asking for an article summary or a question that needs fresh information. Moonshot AI says it isn't used for automated bulk crawling. It also runs a search crawler, Kimi-SearchBot, and a training crawler, KimiBot.

• Kimi recommends robots.txt over IP blocking, because blocking its IPs can stop it reading your latest rules. Source
• Kimi treats each subdomain separately, so each needs its own robots.txt. Source

Does Kimi-User follow robots.txt?

Partly. Kimi says robots.txt rules may not directly apply to Kimi-User, but that disallowing it may reduce your visibility in searches Kimi users run.

How to block or allow Kimi-User

Block it from the whole site:

User-agent: Kimi-User
Disallow: /

Keep it out of one folder only:

User-agent: Kimi-User
Disallow: /private/

A crawler that finds a group with its own name follows only that group and ignores User-agent: *. If your * group disallows paths such as /admin/, repeat those lines in the Kimi-User group. robots.txt works per host, so add the rules to each subdomain you want covered.

Because Kimi-User doesn't always obey robots.txt, a firewall or CDN rule that matches its user agent is the dependable way to stop it.

Test the result with the robots.txt checker, or write a new file with the robots.txt generator.

What blocking Kimi-User changes

Kimi says it may reduce how often your site appears in searches people run in Kimi.

Where to see Kimi-User visits

Most bots never appear in Google Analytics. Many don't run JavaScript, so the analytics tag never loads, and Google Analytics 4 automatically excludes traffic from known bots and spiders. Your server or CDN logs record every request with its user agent, so search them for the bot's name.

OneLence AI visibility shows which pages AI crawlers read and fetch for answers, next to the visitors AI assistants send you and the ones that convert.

Other bots from Moonshot AI

• Kimi-SearchBot: Kimi-SearchBot builds the search index behind Kimi's search features. Blocking it keeps your site out of Kimi's search results.