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AI SearchYou.com

YouBot: IP ranges, verification & how to handle it

Last verified: 2026-06-13 · maintained by Unsourced

YouBot indexes pages for You.com's AI search engine, which cites sources in its answers — making it a live-search crawler that can refer traffic.

Verified IP ranges & identity

You.com does not publish a machine-readable IP-range feed for YouBot. The reliable way to verify it is reverse DNS: a genuine YouBot request's IP reverse-resolves to you.com (and that hostname forward-resolves back to the same IP).

How to verify a request is really YouBot

A User-Agent string is just a claim — anyone can send YouBot in a header. Confirm identity two ways: forward-confirmed reverse DNS (the IP resolves to You.com, and that host resolves back to the IP), and, where published, an IP inside the operator's official ranges. If neither holds, it's an impostor wearing the badge — not YouBot.

Should you allow or block YouBot?

Recommended: bait. Cites and links to sources and can send you referral traffic — you want this crawler.

If you do choose to act in robots.txt (which crawlers honour but don't enforce):

# YouBot: recommended to ALLOW — blocking can cost you AI visibility
User-agent: YouBot
Disallow:

Official sources

Common questions about YouBot

Is YouBot really from You.com?

YouBot is You.com's crawler, but a User-Agent header can be spoofed, so the claim alone isn't proof. Confirm it with forward-confirmed reverse DNS and, where published, a match against You.com's official IP ranges.

What are YouBot's IP ranges?

You.com doesn't publish a machine-readable IP-range feed for YouBot. Verify it by reverse DNS instead: a genuine request reverse-resolves to you.com, and that host forward-resolves back to the same IP.

Should I block YouBot?

Our recommendation: bait. Cites and links to sources and can send you referral traffic — you want this crawler.

Related crawlers

Is YouBot — or an impostor — actually hitting your site?

Unsourced verifies every AI crawler against published ranges and reverse DNS, and shows which AI assistants cite you.

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