Moonshot AI · Search indexes
Kimi-SearchBot
Moonshot’s Kimi search-index crawler. This is the discovery path into Kimi search, not the live user fetch.
- Operator
- Moonshot AI
- Traffic type
- Search indexes
- Verification
- Not independently verifiable
- robots.txt
- Usually honors robots.txt
Usually means: Crawlers that build the indexes ChatGPT search, Claude search, Perplexity, Google, and Bing draw from. Blocking them is how brands disappear from AI answers without noticing.
User-agent
robots.txt and most WAF rules match the token, not the full Mozilla string. Operators often wrap Kimi-SearchBot in extra product or version text.
Kimi-SearchBot
What Kimi-SearchBot does
Kimi-SearchBot refreshes Kimi’s search/answer index. Pair it with Kimi-User; blocking only one of them still breaks part of the path.
How to get discovered
Allow Kimi-SearchBot, keep a sitemap, and serve HTML. If you care about that market, do not run a US-only bot allowlist.
Why Kimi-SearchBot might skip you
Geo blocking, missing sitemap, or robots that never name Kimi tokens.
robots.txt rule
Allow this token on public pages you want retrieved or cited. A CDN “Block AI bots” toggle can still 403 it after robots.txt says Allow.
# Keep Kimi-SearchBot eligible to fetch this site
User-agent: Kimi-SearchBot
Allow: /Moonshot AI has not published a machine-readable range file for this token. Do not treat the user-agent alone as proof of identity.
JavaScript: reads raw HTML only.
Other Moonshot AI bots
Training, search, and user-fetch tokens from the same operator are not interchangeable. Allow the discovery path even when you opt out of training.
Kimi-SearchBot FAQ
What is Kimi-SearchBot?
Kimi-SearchBot refreshes Kimi’s search/answer index. Pair it with Kimi-User; blocking only one of them still breaks part of the path.
Should I allow Kimi-SearchBot in robots.txt?
Yes if you want Moonshot AI to be able to fetch and cite this site. Blocking Kimi-SearchBot is how pages stay invisible to that product even when Googlebot still crawls them.
How do I know a request is really Kimi-SearchBot?
Moonshot AI has not published a range file for this token. Treat the user-agent as a claimed identity, and do not build a hard IP allowlist from blog posts or screenshots.
Letting Kimi-SearchBot in is the start. Getting cited is the job.
Rankealo checks whether AI crawlers can reach you, then publishes pages built to be retrieved and quoted in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini.
